EDITORIAL: Likhachev and his Lies

EDITORIAL

Likhachev and his Lies

Vasily Likhachev, Neo-Soviet Con Artist

According to Vasily Likhachev, formerly Russia’s ambassador to the European Union and now a member of the Federation Council (appointed lackeys of dictator Vladimir Putin), we here at La Russophobe are like AIDS and we need to be wiped out.

When you hear something like that coming from a Russian about critics of the Kremlin, you cannot but hear the echoes of Josef Stalin, a man who could only win arguments at gunpoint because there simply was no factual basis to his position. 

Just look at the man!  He looks exactly like the crude, violent thug he is, exactly the sort of person Vladimir Putin has filled the halls of power with, exactly the kind who brough the USSR quickly to its knees before the eyes of a slackjawed world.

In a column published in the Moscow Times, he writes:

Young European countries that have only recently declared their sovereignty are the main instigators of this division and antagonism. I am speaking about countries that are trying to define their own identity, that possess great ambitions but few resources. Their names are well known — Georgia, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Poland and others. Under the patronage of the United States, they have become valuable pawns for conservatives and neoconservatives in the West in their global chess game against Russia.

As a result, these European states are actively cultivating Russophobia to give the United States the upper edge in the game. Recall the recent resolution of the Polish Diet concerning the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, anti-Russian resolutions of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe concerning events in the Caucasus in August 2008 and the resolution of the European Parliament regarding energy security. These initiatives indicate an escalation of anti-Russian rhetoric in Europe. That is why we should heed President Dmitry Medvedev’s words that he spoke at the UN General Assembly several weeks ago: that “irresponsible political regimes” should not be allowed to provoke divisions in Europe.

In any case, political manipulations under the guise of Russophobia are like the “political AIDS” of the 21st century, and we must take firm measures to eliminate them. It is clear that legal nihilism, double standards, U.S. hard-power tactics only lead to an increase in global conflicts. It takes away time and resources of the state that could be used for working together to find effective solutions to such urgent problems as terrorism, piracy, health pandemics, nuclear nonproliferation, other weapons of mass destruction, the demilitarization of space and overcoming the global economic crisis.

Well.  Let’s see now.  In terms of per capita GDP, Estonia ranks #41, Latvia #45, Lithuania #49 and Poland #50 in the world according to the IMF.  They all beat Russia, which comes in at #52. 

Few resources?  It seems Mr. Likhachev was lying.  Surprise, surprise!

Are these countries really “pawns of conservatives and neoconservatives” or was Mr. Likhachev lying about that too?  Who was it, we wonder, that sent U.S. troops into Yugoslavia? The conservatives?  As far as we can recall, it was the liberal government of Democrat Bill Clinton.  George Bush, by contrast, let the tanks roll right into Georgia, resulting in a good deal of criticism from his Democratic rivals. Oops. Mr. Likhachev caught in second lie.

Does the world really agree with Dima Medvedev about “irresponsible political regimes”?  Nobody vaguely acquainted with actual facts thinks so.  The world identifies rogue regimes like Iran under that rubric, it’s only among those rogues that the USA is considered “irresponsible.”  Russia stands against the entire world when it opposes sanctions being applied against Iran and when it sells weapons to crazed dictatorships in Syria, Venezuela and Libya.  Like the infamous emperor with his new clothes, only Russia is unable to see how it has been ostracized and scorned.  That’s yet a third lie Mr. Likhachev is guilty of.

And how about his ideas on “anti-Russian rhetoric” and “Russophobia”?  Can’t even a child easily see that he himself is engaging in exactly the same kind of vicious hatred that he purports to criticize?  Does it really contribute to warm human understanding to equate a school of thought on Russia with AIDS?  And is it really wise for a man who represents the government of a country which faces one of the world’s most pernicious AIDS catastrophes to bandy that disease about for propaganda purposes?

We think not.  We think, to the contrary, that this man is mind-bendingly evil, the personification of everything that is wrong with modern Russia, the obvious explanation why the country’s population is plummeting amid pandemic alcoholism, suicide and utter despair.