Belarus's Lukashenko a 'brutal tyrant', says McCain

I guess McCain is feeling his oats after his meeting with Obama. Barry must’ve allowed him to borrow the car for a few days.

McCain is a POS. I know some AZ folks here love him.

McCain ain’t a very good judge of character.

So, Rabs, do you disagree with McCain and think that Lukashenko isn't a tyrant?

Do you even know where Belarus is on the map?

And will you ever get around to answering my question I've posed to you many times - do you think repeal of DADT is a good or bad thing?

And what is McCain but an open border Progaressive? I would believe Mickey Mouse before I would believe McCain.

It sounds like McCain’s cancer is rolling around his brain now.

Belarus is one of the last hard-core Stalinist countries left in the world. Do you disagree with McCain's assessment here?

Jeez, McCain does enough actually boneheaded stuff without getting after him when he has it correct.

Let’s get our own house in order first, Johnboy.

I used to be appalled by democrat congressmen and senators who would run around the world pursuing their own parallel foreign policy initiatives, but I see pubbies do the same.

Last week I found this interesting article:

Garry Kasparov meets with U.S. senators

(Photo: Rep. James McGovern, Garry Kasparov, and Vladimir Kara-Murza. Photo by V. Bukovsky press center)

The leader of the United Civil Front, Garry Kasparov, held a meeting at the U.S. Congress on introducing visa sanctions against senior Russian officials responsible for violations of civil rights and freedoms, and complicity in corruption. According to the Vladimir Bukovsky press center, the topic of personal sanctions was discussed in a meeting of Kasparov with U.S. Senators John McCain and Joseph Lieberman and Congressman James McGovern. The negotiations also involved a member of the Federal Political Council from the Solidarity party, Vladimir Kara-Murza.

In November 2010, a proposal to ban entry into the U.S. of officials involved in violations of Russia’s international obligations on democracy, the rule of law, and human rights, was made by Solidarity bureau member Boris Nemtsov. He urged Michael McFaul, National Security Council secretary for Russian affairs, to leave a joint Russian-American commission on the issues of civic organizations. Speaking before Congress, Nemtsov suggested that Vladislav Surkov, first deputy chief of the Russian presidential administration and co-chairman on of the commission on the Russian side, be named in the bill concerning a ban on entry into the U.S. by Russian officials and law enforcement officials on the so-called ‘Magnitsky list’. According to Nemtsov, McFaul supports this idea.

“I think that Surkov should be the first to be denied entry into the West,” said Nemtsov. “He is responsible for establishing censorship in the country, he is responsible for turning Russian elections into an absolute farce, he created and funds extremist pro-Kremlin youth organizations that hold hate marches about downtown Moscow, while representing our human rights activists and opposition members as Nazi criminals.”

Nemtsov also proposed a pact in support of democracy in Russia, the essence of which would be to impose sanctions not against the country, but against certain individuals. “America is used to putting sanctions against countries, but a regime of sanctions against certain officials has not yet been done,” he said.

In early January, Senators McCain and Lieberman issued a joint statement calling the December 31st arrest of Nemtsov at an opposition rally: “shameful and outrageous.” Congressman McGovern is the co-chairman of the House of Representatives Human Rights Commission, and co-author of a bill of visa sanctions against Russian officials involved in the death of lawyer Sergei Magnitsky.

In ‘Grani.ru’, January 28th, 2011

http://www.grani.ru/Politics/Russia/m.185748.html

This caught my eye a bit earlier:

A Galaxy without Putin

(SNIP)

...In Washington, the tribune of our people, Nemtsov, has been cooperating with Reagan’s heir, an honest anti-Soviet and anti-communist who fought in Vietnam and is the leading Republican: Senator John McCain. McCain would have become President of the United States, had not Obama been younger, more energetic, more athletic, and more interesting, and had not Obama not been an African-American who could give America the opportunity to forever wash away the stigma of apartheid. Valiant McCain, in contrast to the indifference Barack Obama shows towards our dissidents’ problems, is ready to help Nemtsov, and us, by changing the Jackson-Vanik amendment (there were such people in those days!) into a new ‘Protection of Democracy in Russia Act’. There already is a ‘Protection of Freedom Act’, under which the US cannot allow in Zyuganov, Anpilov, Limonov, Udaltsov, Kim Jong Il, the Chinese ‘comrades’, and Fidel and Raul Castro, but it discriminates in that it really only punishes communist regimes. Our spy gangsters (by this I mean the power elite of the Russian Federation), alas, are not covered by the Act.

But Nemtsov has a brilliant and simple plan: to not allow our little piggies to come to the western table. Let them champ from the swill trough alongside their pets: Hugo Chavez, Lukashenko, Ahmadinejad, and the like. A list has been compiled, headed by Putin and Surkov and as opposed to the ‘Pierre Cardin list’ it will be the ‘Nemtsov list’. Perhaps the little piggies, when not admitted to the European table, will act less like pigs in their homeland? Perhaps they will release Khodorkovsky and Lebedev, release other political prisoners, withdraw their troops from Transdnistria, Abkhazia, and the Tskhinvali region (of South Ossetia), and agree to turn their back on Iran, Cuba, and China, and quit bothering the Ukraine and the Baltic states? The wonderful Nemtsov-McCain project, however, needs to be improved and supplemented in its amendments.

Added to the list should by Robin, or whoever he is, or his younger brother. If he is not responsible for anything, then let him resign, but if he is Putin’s ‘roof’ (protection - ed), then he needs to assume responsibility for his ‘roofing’ (protection racket - ed). Do not allow ruling elites #1, #2, #3, on up to #500 into Europe. If the U.S. adopts Nemtsov’s Act, then maybe the EU will follow America’s example. There is, however, a better option: do not repeal the Jackson-Vanik amendment, but adopt the Protection of Democracy in Russia Act. Think about it, Jackson and Vanik were good fellows - they wanted to punish the USSR for its sins. Its refusal to let the Jews leave was just one of many crimes. They did not let anybody leave - neither Russians nor Tartars nor Bashkirs. There were many reasons to punish the USSR: Afghanistan... Czechoslovakia... the Evil Empire... the Gulag... the occupation of Eastern Europe... Punitive psychiatry... Political prisoners... Sakharov’s exile... the South Korean airliner... not even the Internet is big enough to enumerate it all.

But today’s Russia, the Russia of bandits in uniform from the Lubyanka, is it really innocent? To repeal the amendment would be a sign of encouragement. Now Jews and any other Russian citizens are free to leave the country, but this all was done by Yeltsin, and Putin and Medvedev should not be rewarded for it. Add to the list all the governors (including Nikita Beliy, so that his betrayal of his liberal comrades and the surrender of the Right Wing Union to the authorities does not go unpunished). The governors support the regime. Add all the generals, prosecutors and judges who convicted Yukos and demonstrators. Add all members of United Russia party, the LDPR, and the Communist Party of Russia. Add all members of the Russian Duma and the Federation Council, and all top officials of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. As far as the people who remained silent and voted for Putin, Medvedev, and United Russia, I would punish them by exile to a prison Gulag (i.e.: Russia). One must answer for cowardice, meanness, and slavery.

It was not for no reason that Andrei Sakharov called on the United States and Canada not to sell wheat to the USSR. It was in order to kill a totalitarian regime “with the gaunt hand of famine” (which is what one clever British lord said early in the Bolshevik era, but no one would listen). Soviets have no business in Spanish resorts. Let them bathe in Sochi. Cancel entry visas and do not give these to anyone without a permission slip from the democratic opposition. This permission slip should state that the applicant has participated in rallies and signed petitions with the statement: “Putin resign!” and donated money to the People’s Freedom Party, the Helsinki Group, or to Solidarity projects. Make them bring their receipts to the consulate.

And this, to you, is my mid-winter fairy tale.

By Valeria Novodvorskaya, in ‘Grani.ru’

December 14th, 2010

http://www.grani.ru/opinion/novodvorskaya/m.184426.html

So tell us how opposing Putin-esque repression is a bad thing. Do you think a site like FR could have a viable Russian equivalent with Putin in charge behind the scenes?

I'm no friend of Putin. He still owes me money from one of his many sordid dealings in Petersburg.

It saddens me that the possibilities of true Russian democracy lasted for such a short while. Russians are probably condemned to more long centuries of benevolent and not so benevolent dictatorships.

Our fate, too, if we are not careful.

Here is an interesting editorial about Putin that I could, had I wished, left to dissipate unread on a Russian version of Free Republic:

The colonel listens to no one

Russians like Putin and will vote for him again in the next elections if he runs for President, as is looking more and more likely.

It is not that. It is just that McCain is so nuts all the time. If he should hit something right, it is a mistake. Also, you know what they say about a broken clock.

Sorry, but he’s right here. There is no shortage of bad McCain utterances to where we have to rag on him when he’s right.