What’s Worse in Russia: Drinking, or Lying about Drinking?

Last week the Kremlin admitted that Russia has 2 million alcoholics, that more than 40,000 Russians are killed each year by alcohol poisoning, according to the Kremlin’s data, and it was reported that over the past three weeks 400 people have been hospitalized by alcohol poisoning in the region of Pskov alone, with 15 fatalities. Sound horrific? It would be anyplace other than Russia. In fact, though, this data likely underestimates Russia’s problem by several orders of magnitude.

Indeed, the Kremlin’s brazen dishonesty is perhaps an even greater problem than drinking. According to experts, “in an adult population where at least three-fourths are drinkers, about 6 percent of the total group are probably alcoholic.” That means Russia must have over 6 million alcoholics as defined by Western standards (Russia’s adult population is about 110 million), and Russia is one of the most severe abusers of alcohol in the world, so the actual share of its population that is afflicted is probably far greater. So either Russia is defining “alcoholic” in a way so extreme as to exclude two-thirds of the population, or it simply lying about the number. Either way, it’s not suprising that the problem only gets worse. At the same time, it’s perfectly possible that the government is simply incapable of determining what share of its population is afflicted, and just guessing. This kind of thing is what passes for “social policy” in Russia and explains why the population falls by up to 1 million each year.

The simple fact is that, being governed by a clan of proud KGB spies, not one single word the Kremlin utters can be taken at face value. This lack of credibilty alone is good enough reason to condemn the election of a proud KGB spy as president. Without basic information that is credible, it’s impossible to establish a civilized, prosperous society.

Thanks for reading La Russophobe !

What’s Worse in Russia: Drinking, or Lying about Drinking?

Last week the Kremlin admitted that Russia has 2 million alcoholics, that more than 40,000 Russians are killed each year by alcohol poisoning, according to the Kremlin’s data, and it was reported that over the past three weeks 400 people have been hospitalized by alcohol poisoning in the region of Pskov alone, with 15 fatalities. Sound horrific? It would be anyplace other than Russia. In fact, though, this data likely underestimates Russia’s problem by several orders of magnitude.

Indeed, the Kremlin’s brazen dishonesty is perhaps an even greater problem than drinking. According to experts, “in an adult population where at least three-fourths are drinkers, about 6 percent of the total group are probably alcoholic.” That means Russia must have over 6 million alcoholics as defined by Western standards (Russia’s adult population is about 110 million), and Russia is one of the most severe abusers of alcohol in the world, so the actual share of its population that is afflicted is probably far greater. So either Russia is defining “alcoholic” in a way so extreme as to exclude two-thirds of the population, or it simply lying about the number. Either way, it’s not suprising that the problem only gets worse. At the same time, it’s perfectly possible that the government is simply incapable of determining what share of its population is afflicted, and just guessing. This kind of thing is what passes for “social policy” in Russia and explains why the population falls by up to 1 million each year.

The simple fact is that, being governed by a clan of proud KGB spies, not one single word the Kremlin utters can be taken at face value. This lack of credibilty alone is good enough reason to condemn the election of a proud KGB spy as president. Without basic information that is credible, it’s impossible to establish a civilized, prosperous society.

Thanks for reading La Russophobe !

What’s Worse in Russia: Drinking, or Lying about Drinking?

Last week the Kremlin admitted that Russia has 2 million alcoholics, that more than 40,000 Russians are killed each year by alcohol poisoning, according to the Kremlin’s data, and it was reported that over the past three weeks 400 people have been hospitalized by alcohol poisoning in the region of Pskov alone, with 15 fatalities. Sound horrific? It would be anyplace other than Russia. In fact, though, this data likely underestimates Russia’s problem by several orders of magnitude.

Indeed, the Kremlin’s brazen dishonesty is perhaps an even greater problem than drinking. According to experts, “in an adult population where at least three-fourths are drinkers, about 6 percent of the total group are probably alcoholic.” That means Russia must have over 6 million alcoholics as defined by Western standards (Russia’s adult population is about 110 million), and Russia is one of the most severe abusers of alcohol in the world, so the actual share of its population that is afflicted is probably far greater. So either Russia is defining “alcoholic” in a way so extreme as to exclude two-thirds of the population, or it simply lying about the number. Either way, it’s not suprising that the problem only gets worse. At the same time, it’s perfectly possible that the government is simply incapable of determining what share of its population is afflicted, and just guessing. This kind of thing is what passes for “social policy” in Russia and explains why the population falls by up to 1 million each year.

The simple fact is that, being governed by a clan of proud KGB spies, not one single word the Kremlin utters can be taken at face value. This lack of credibilty alone is good enough reason to condemn the election of a proud KGB spy as president. Without basic information that is credible, it’s impossible to establish a civilized, prosperous society.

Thanks for reading La Russophobe !

What’s Worse in Russia: Drinking, or Lying about Drinking?

Last week the Kremlin admitted that Russia has 2 million alcoholics, that more than 40,000 Russians are killed each year by alcohol poisoning, according to the Kremlin’s data, and it was reported that over the past three weeks 400 people have been hospitalized by alcohol poisoning in the region of Pskov alone, with 15 fatalities. Sound horrific? It would be anyplace other than Russia. In fact, though, this data likely underestimates Russia’s problem by several orders of magnitude.

Indeed, the Kremlin’s brazen dishonesty is perhaps an even greater problem than drinking. According to experts, “in an adult population where at least three-fourths are drinkers, about 6 percent of the total group are probably alcoholic.” That means Russia must have over 6 million alcoholics as defined by Western standards (Russia’s adult population is about 110 million), and Russia is one of the most severe abusers of alcohol in the world, so the actual share of its population that is afflicted is probably far greater. So either Russia is defining “alcoholic” in a way so extreme as to exclude two-thirds of the population, or it simply lying about the number. Either way, it’s not suprising that the problem only gets worse. At the same time, it’s perfectly possible that the government is simply incapable of determining what share of its population is afflicted, and just guessing. This kind of thing is what passes for “social policy” in Russia and explains why the population falls by up to 1 million each year.

The simple fact is that, being governed by a clan of proud KGB spies, not one single word the Kremlin utters can be taken at face value. This lack of credibilty alone is good enough reason to condemn the election of a proud KGB spy as president. Without basic information that is credible, it’s impossible to establish a civilized, prosperous society.

Thanks for reading La Russophobe !

What’s Worse in Russia: Drinking, or Lying about Drinking?

Last week the Kremlin admitted that Russia has 2 million alcoholics, that more than 40,000 Russians are killed each year by alcohol poisoning, according to the Kremlin’s data, and it was reported that over the past three weeks 400 people have been hospitalized by alcohol poisoning in the region of Pskov alone, with 15 fatalities. Sound horrific? It would be anyplace other than Russia. In fact, though, this data likely underestimates Russia’s problem by several orders of magnitude.

Indeed, the Kremlin’s brazen dishonesty is perhaps an even greater problem than drinking. According to experts, “in an adult population where at least three-fourths are drinkers, about 6 percent of the total group are probably alcoholic.” That means Russia must have over 6 million alcoholics as defined by Western standards (Russia’s adult population is about 110 million), and Russia is one of the most severe abusers of alcohol in the world, so the actual share of its population that is afflicted is probably far greater. So either Russia is defining “alcoholic” in a way so extreme as to exclude two-thirds of the population, or it simply lying about the number. Either way, it’s not suprising that the problem only gets worse. At the same time, it’s perfectly possible that the government is simply incapable of determining what share of its population is afflicted, and just guessing. This kind of thing is what passes for “social policy” in Russia and explains why the population falls by up to 1 million each year.

The simple fact is that, being governed by a clan of proud KGB spies, not one single word the Kremlin utters can be taken at face value. This lack of credibilty alone is good enough reason to condemn the election of a proud KGB spy as president. Without basic information that is credible, it’s impossible to establish a civilized, prosperous society.

Thanks for reading La Russophobe !

Annals of Cold War: Russia is #1 . . . in selling weapons to the world!

The New York Times reports that Neo-Soviet Russia is now the world’s leading arms merchant, surpassing the U.S. in dealing instruments of destruction. Nearly one out of every four dollars spent on weapons by developing nations goes to Russia.

Russia surpassed the United States in 2005 as the leader in weapons deals with the developing world, and its new agreements included selling $700 million in surface-to-air missiles to Iran and eight new aerial refueling tankers to China, according to a new Congressional study. Those weapons deals were part of the highly competitive global arms bazaar in the developing world that grew to $30.2 billion in 2005, up from $26.4 billion in 2004. It is a market that the United States has regularly dominated.

Russia’s agreements with Iran are not the biggest part of its total sales — India and China are its principal buyers. But the sales to improve Iran’s air-defense system are particularly troubling to the United States because they would complicate the task of Pentagon planners should the president order airstrikes on Iran’s nuclear weapons facilities.

The Bush administration has vowed a diplomatic solution in dealing with Iran. But as United Nations diplomats argue over potential sanctions against Iran for its nuclear ambitions, Russian officials have expressed reluctance to vote for the most stringent economic sanctions, partly owing to Moscow’s extensive trade relations with Tehran.

Russia’s weapons sales to China also worry Pentagon planners. Although China has joined the United States in partnership to press for a resumption of six-party talks to end North Korea’s nuclear weapons program after its recent test, Taiwan remains a potential flash point between Beijing and Washington.

Thus, China’s ability to refuel its attack planes and bombers to enable them to fly farther from Chinese soil could require the United States Navy to operate even farther out to sea should the United States military be called to deal with a crisis in the Taiwan Strait. That would have an impact on the range and number of air missions of United States Navy aircraft launched from carriers.

Details of the specific weapons deals in the global arms trade last year are included in an annual study by the Congressional Research Service that is considered the most thorough compilation of statistics available in an unclassified form. The report was delivered to members of Congress on Friday.

Among other arms transfers described in the study was a statistic that a single, unnamed nation — but one identified separately by Pentagon and other administration officials to be North Korea — shipped about 40 ballistic missiles to other nations in the four-year period ending in 2005, the only nation to have done so. Transfers of these weapons are prohibited under international agreements to control the trade of ballistic missiles.

United Nations sanctions passed earlier this month after the North Korean nuclear test include a new and specific ban on trade or transport of ballistic missiles and missile parts to or from North Korea.

The report, entitled “Conventional Arms Transfers to Developing Nations,” found that Russia’s arms agreements with the developing world totaled $7 billion in 2005, an increase from its $5.4 billion in sales in 2004. That figure surpassed the United States’ annual sales agreements to the developing world for the first time since the collapse of the Soviet Union. France ranked second in arms transfer agreements to developing nations, with $6.3 billion, and the United States was third, with $6.2 billion.

The leading buyer in the developing world in 2005 was India, with $5.4 billion in weapons purchases, followed by Saudi Arabia with $3.4 billion and China with $2.8 billion.

The total value of all arms sales deals worldwide, when counting both developing and developed nations, in 2005 was $44.2 billion.

The Russian sales in 2005 included 29 of the SA-15 Gauntlet surface-to-air missile systems for Iran; Russia also signed deals to upgrade Iran’s Su-24 bombers and MIG-29 fighter aircraft, as well as its T-72 battle tanks. “For a period of time, in the mid-1990s, the Russian government agreed not to make new advanced weapons sales to the Iran government,” wrote Richard F. Grimmett, author of the study by the Congressional Research Service, a division of the Library of Congress. “That agreement has since been rescinded by Russia. As the U.S. focuses increasing attention on Iran’s efforts to enhance its nuclear as well as conventional military capabilities, major arms transfers to Iran continue to be a matter of concern.”

Russia also agreed in 2005 to sell China eight of the IL-78M aerial refueling tanker aircraft, according to the study.

In 2005, the United States led in total arms transfer agreements, when deals to both developed and developing nations are combined. The total was $12.8 billion, down from $13.2 billion in 2004.

The report charted no blockbuster military sales deals by the United States in 2005, and the total in many ways was reached by sales of spare parts for weapons purchased under previous contracts.

France ranked second in total sales, with $7.9 billion, up from $2.2 billion in 2004. Russia was third when sales to developing and developed nations were combined, with $7.4 billion, up from $5.6 billion in 2004.

The study uses figures in 2005 dollars, with amounts for previous years adjusted to account for inflation.

Thanks for reading La Russophobe !

Annals of the Neo-Soviet Empire

A fellow in the former Soviet slave state of Macedonia, an other such place now actively seeking to join NATO out of fear of Russian imperial designs, has given a group of Russian diplomats “five good reasons” to consider leaving his country, as ITAR-TASS reports:

Four employees of the Russian embassy in Macedonia have been attacked, a source at the Macedonian Interior Ministry told Itar-Tass on Sunday. The incident happened on Saturday evening. The four diplomats were about to leave a cafй on the central square of Skopje when a young man approached them and suddenly hit one of the diplomats. The cafй security joined the brawl when the diplomats went out. All in all, ten to twelve people took part in the attack. The diplomats were injured. They received medical aid at the Skopje hospital and were discharged for further treatment at home. The police are looking for the attackers. The Russian Foreign Ministry will make a protest, the source said.

Meanwhile, Russia has censored a Georgian television station operating in Moscow, knocking it off the air. Red Orbit reports from Echo Moskvy:

A cable TV channel broadcasting news and programmes in the Georgian language has been taken off the air in the town of Lobnya, in Moscow Region. Ajaria TV has now been replaced with a music channel. The [cable network] operator switched the channel off after it had received a phone call from the authorities telling it to stop anti-Russian propaganda, a member of the cable network operator’s staff has told Novaya Gazeta [newspaper]. The source did not specify the department where the phone call had come from.

John McCain slammed Russia’s “nostalgia” for Neo-Soviet imperial designs:

Arizona senator and likely presidential candidate John McCain charged Saturday that Russian President Vladimir Putin is “seeking to re-establish the Russian empire using petro-dollars to do it as he bullies and threatens his neighbors.” The Republican senator made the comments during a rally at the Elks Lodge in support of U.S. Rep. Rob Simmons, R-2nd District. McCain, in warning his listeners that “this is a very dangerous world,” included Russia along with the usual suspects, such as Iran and North Korea. McCain said that given the dangerous complexities the nation faces, it is paramount to return Simmons — a man with military and CIA experience — to office. Simmons faces Democratic challenger Joe Courtney, a former state legislator, in the Nov. 7 election. At a brief news conference following the rally, McCain said he was not suggesting that Russia is a military threat to the United States, as the Soviet Union was during the Cold War. But it is troubling, he said, that Russia is not following the path to democracy that had been hoped for when the Soviet Union collapsed. “Every indication is that Putin has gone the way of autocracy and is nostalgic for the days of the Russian empire,” McCain said. “It’s obvious the path they’re on is certainly not one toward democracy.” He cited the repression of the independent press, the slaying of investigative journalist Anna Politkovskaya and continued presence of Russian military bases in Georgia, against the Georgians’ will, as reasons for concern.

Thanks for reading La Russophobe !

And they say AMERICA has no culture?

What does this look like to you? Does it look like the world’s largest monument to utter incompetence? Is it simply the ugliest thing you’ve ever seen?

It’s actually Russia’s proof of how much more culture, taste and style it has compared to America. It’s a 100-foot tall “monument” by Moscow sculptor Zurab Tsereteli called the “Tear of Sorrow” and supposedly commemorating victims of terrorism in the United States as a gift of the government of Russia. It’s so ugly that when in September 2003, the mayor of Jersey City, New Jersey, agreed to have the monument erected on a Hudson River peer overlooking the World Trade Center redevelopment site, there was such a violent outcry from the local residents that the mayor was forced to rescind his offer. Tsereteli then spent the next two years trying to find a spot to erect his monstrosity, and ultimately got persmission to raise it in lowly, woebegotten Bayonne, where it was dedicated on September 11, 2006 — but only after it was discovered that the plaque on the monument listing the names of those killed in the 9/11 attack included dozens of people who were still alive. At the ceremony, Tsereteli propagandized by stating: “All that I can say is in front of you. This Tear of Sorrow will become a tear of joy if the U.S. and Russia unite in the fight against terrorism.”

So let’s see now. Two one-hundred-foot-tall presents in the area from foreign governments to the U.S. for Americans to review and compare (not that anyone is actually going to drag themselves all the way out to godawful Bayonne, but just theoretically speaking). One is the French Statute of Liberty and one is the Russian Tear of Sorrow. Well, perhaps the ghastly thing will serve a useful purpose after all. And if Russia continues down the path it is currently on, it will make a perfect tombstone for the nation that destroyed itself.

Thanks for reading La Russophobe !

Averko and Guillory Sitting in a Tree?

Here’s what esteemed Economist analyst Edward Lucas says on his blog about wacko Russian nationalist Mike Averko‘s e-mail “newsletter” — which Averko started sending out because of his belief that David Johnson’s e-mail newsletter didn’t contain enough pro-Russian propaganda:

I disagree with every word in it. [His] oddly forgetful approach to important facts may undermine in some eyes Averko’s argument about “censorship” in “Anglo-American mass media”

Lucas was commenting on Averko’s argument that America is just like Russia, killing off famous journalists like Politkovskaya right and left, so there’s no reason for Americans to get all worked up about her killing.

Here’s how Averko characterized Lucas’s statements about him on Sean’s Russia blog, where he’s now apparently come to roost, without linking to to them so readers could see the full context:

Please give my regards to Edward Lucas, who (at his blog) endorses my Quick Takes mailing list on Russia and other international issues.

In other words, typical Averko dishonesty and propaganda. Lucas clearly stated that he disagreed with every word in Averko’s posts and that they were not reliable because of Averko’s “oddly forgetful” approach to facts. So although Lucas did write that ” I strongly recommend [Averko’s email] for anyone interested in Russia and the neighbourhood,” it seems quite clear that, in context, he meant that it’s a rich resource of crazed Russophile propaganda which those interested in Russia must contend with when they screen information about the country.

The fact that Sean Guillory has attracted the interest of Averko is not surprising given Sean’s amazing recent statement that America is a threat to Russian security, ignoring any possibility that the opposite could be true, and his statement that America isn’t a democracy. Sean writes: “After how the US treated Russia in the 1990s and the history of American foreign policy, I really don’t see that ever happening. I think that Russia views the US penetration in Central Asia and the Caucauses as a threat, and rightly so in my opinion.” Indeed. US penetration at Normandy on D-Day was a threat to Hitler, too. And rightly so, in La Russophobe‘s opinion. Perhaps Sean thinks Hitler ought to have been left well enough alone.

David McDuff exposes the shockingly anti-American attitude of academics like Sean (who has recently called President Bush and “idiot” and said “take a look in the mirror, sister” to Secretary of State Rice). McDuff reports:

Shmuel Rosner has a post on a new survey of attitudes to world affairs among U.S. university and academic staff. As he says, the results are either funny or sad. They certainly make for reflection. Excerpt: Faculty see the United States as a greater threat to world stability than Russia by a ratio of 7-to-1. Nearly half of humanities faculty, 46%, see the United States as a threat to international stability, as do 34% of social science faculty. Faculty attitudes toward America look very similar to the attitudes of Europeans. A recent poll for the Financial Times reported that 36% of Europeans identify the United States as the greatest threat to international stability. About 12% of faculty see Israel as a great threat to international stability. Looked at another way, 41% of faculty see the United States and Israel combined as the greatest threats, compared to China and Russia combined, with 23%. For humanities faculty, 56% list the United States and Israel, compared to 20% who name China and Russia combined, or 41% who list China, Russia, and Iran combined.

Isn’t it strange how these folks think Americans commit a crime when they express Russophobia, but see no problem in their own anti-Americanism? Perhaps this is the reason that Republicans have dominated American electoral politics for so many years. These people are so far out of touch with the people in their own country that they might as well be living in a different one, but they haven’t got the courage to make one of their own so they are left stewing in their own hatred, which is really self-loathing. An academic like Sean might ask in response what America has done to provoke all this ire. Yet, he doesn’t ask that question of Russia when it comes to America’s “penetration” in Central Asia, now does he? What has Russia done to make America think it must take such action? Sean apparently couldn’t care less (or maybe he thinks Russia is simply innocent as a lamb). He doesn’t mention whether the U.S. should see Russia’s providing of massive economic assistance to Cuba and massive military assistance to Venezuela as a threat, either. If they are, perhaps Sean thinks Russia is perfectly justified in threatening the US in this way, if the US has the audacity to try to help the former Soviet slave states break free from Russian imperialism.

Sean states: “[A]nyone still believing that there is still democracy in America is still stuck on gazing at the trees despite the forest.” His source for this shocking news? Why, it’s the that heavyweight journal of democratic politics Rolling Stone magazine and the brilliant “analysis” of Matt Taibbi, former “reporter” for eXile. Taibbi’s view of the U.S. Congress, which Sean finds worthy of extensive quoting, is that it is a “Belarus-style rubber stamp” and that Republicans exhibit “some of the most mind-blowingly juvenile behavior seen in any parliament west of the Russian Duma after happy hour.” It’s not surprising that the only outlet for “analysis” of this kind is Rolling Stone.

Neither Sean nor Matt nor Mike seem to have even a basic grasp of the American Constitution; under it, Congress is supposed to be highly inefficient and unproductive. That’s why it creates an elaborate system of two radically different bodies which must both agree before any initiative can be taken. The purpose was not to advance policy agendas but to prevent dictatorship. Most of the legislative power is reserved by the Constitution to state governments. This is, of course, very frustrating to left-wing socialists types with grandiose schemes for national salvation, but in two hundred years they’ve not succeeded in altering it because it’s what the vast majority of the people in the country want.

La Russophobe is prepared to make a little wager: She bets that Sean can’t name his representative in the California assembly, and has never tried to communicate with her/him on any policy issue. She bets he’s never attended a local school board meeting, never campaigned for a candidate for his city council or attended a council meeting, never worked in a democratic way one single day in his life to solve any kind of real problem in people’s lives. In other words, he doesn’t have a shred of real information about whether democracy exists in America or not. He seems oblivious of the fact that control of the corridors of power in Washington DC has peacefully switched back and forth dozens of times between rival American parties over the past two hundred years, while neither Russia nor Belarus have ever done that once in their whole histories, and that most of the real political power in America lies at the state and local level, not in Washington, the level to which Sean pays no attention whatsoever.

Sean’s seething, mouth-frothing hatred of Republicans (in the classic model of scholarly, enlightened discourse he calls them “incompetent, lazy, and corrupt assholes that have driven American democracy into the ground”) is rather ironic — his attitude towads them smacks of exactly the attitude he purports to condemn in them. Sean’s problem isn’t that the U.S. isn’t democratic, it’s that it is. In other words, what he objects to is not that the government doesn’t do what the people want, but that it does. His actual problem is that the government doesn’t do what Sean wants. Sean is an unusual person, dramatically different from most Americans, who don’t choose to spend most of their time studying Russian history. The vast majority of Americans are religious, Sean is an athiest. The vast majority of Americans give different answers to key political questions than Sean gives, think differently than he does, and he just can’t stand that. If Sean had his way, the vast majority of people in the U.S. would feel that the country wasn’t democratic, but it seems that wouldn’t bother Sean one little bit. Perhaps he’s a “democrat” in the same way Lenin was; he thinks he knows what’s best for Americans and that they themselves have no clue. He thinks America is a bigger threat to world security and democracy than Russia is, and he wants to declaw America for its own good. And he’ll “handle” anyone who thinks differently, branding them an “idiot” or an “asshole” and sending them off for reducation, all the while claiming he’s a “democrat.”

It’s more than a little ironic, too, that America’s America-hating academics like Sean continually preach the gospel that America is evil and yet continue to profit from it by working in universities sponsored by that government, and meanwhile hypocritically continue to castigate America for preaching the gospel that any other country is evil, arguing such an attitude is narrow-minded and ignorant. Sean’s blog has a counter showing the rising cost of the war in Iraq (what this has to do with a Russia blog is anybody’s guess, Sean hasn’t got a counter for the rising cost of the war in Chechnya), yet he attacks America in exactly the same way that he claims America has attacked Iraq, harshly and recklessly. Where’s the counter for the damage done by that?

The seething contempt Sean seems to have for present-day America can’t help but color his judgment where Russia is concerned, and it clearly does. That’s why he’s attracted the likes of Mike Averko as a commenter to his blog. But Sean’s a smart guy in many ways and his blog contains a good deal of helpful information about Russia, so perhaps he’ll reverse course before it is too late and Averko starts quoting him in his emails. We shall see.

Thanks for reading La Russophobe !