Ms. Applebaum has written two excellent books. One was on the Gulag and the other was about the Cold War. She’s a straight shooter. I’m sure she’ll be bashed by the Putinista wing, but stating the truth cannot be popular with those who support a former KGB thug turned ultra-nationalist gangster statesman. She nails Putin in this article. All he has to do is stopping supporting the Russian terrorists in Ukraine. Bet you that won’t happen.
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“She nails Putin in this article. All he has to do is stopping supporting the Russian terrorists in Ukraine. Bet you that won’t happen.”
Another post on Putin further along in the data stream mentioned that he would be feeling guilt and shame. Assuming they are capable of feeling guilt and shame and aren’t sociopaths leaders like Putin don’t internalize emotions from the results of their actions. They see themselves not as mere men but as the personification of the state. They act, or think they act, for the betterment of the state. They rationalize their acts which result in death as necessary to any large enterprise. And there will be deaths and unintended consequences to any state-sized act no matter the intention. Years ago in the US planning for any large construction or military exercise was accompanied by an actuarial guide predicting the deaths that would be involved. (These were usually accurate.) So, a peacetime deployment of 20,000 men on a training exercise that last two weeks might predict 2-4 deaths. This practice was stopped as it had poor political optics.
One man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter.
How quickly we forget the “fascist terrorists” backed by the EU and USA who prodded and persuaded them to overthrow the previous government because they did a deal with the Kremlin instead of Brussels.
They overthrew the legally elected Government, no probs there for the “we love democracy “ USa and EU, but when the pro Russian faction says we don’t wanna be with you and Russia naturally backs em up,
Whoa!!
They are terrorists against democracy,
How dare Putin give em Support.
They stand there screaming, Putin gave them weapons, whilst it was they who armed ISIS so they could slaughter Shia, Christians and anybody they don’t like in Iraq.
All Hypocrites.
You got that right!