November 2, 2009 — Contents

MONDAY NOVEMBER 2 CONTENTS

(1)  EDITORIAL:  Russia Dreams of being Guatemala

(2)  EDITORIAL:  Hitler and Chamberlain, Putin and Obama

(3)  Vladimir Putin, Lonely and Weak

(4)  Annals of Neo-Soviet “Education”

(5)  Russia and the Dark Rider

(6)  Russian Blood on the Sands of Doha

NOTE:  Oleg Kozlovsky blogs about Putin’s stormtroopers practicing to use water cannons and tear gas on protesting senior citizens, then covering it all up when caught red-handed.

EDITORIAL: Russia Dreams of being Guatemala

America vs. Russia

EDITORIAL

Russia Dreams of Being Guatemala

The chart above was compiled based on data collected for the 2009 Legatum Prosperity Index, which was published last week.  The data compares 104 different countries of the world on nine different criteria to determine an overall ranking for prosperity and happiness.  America ranks #9 on the list. Russia ranks #69.  The green line in the chart shows America’s level of attainment on the  list of criteria, with the outer edge of the circle representing perfection. The blue line is Russia.  It shows Russia to be, compared to fully developed, rounded America, a perverted, twisted, Mongoloid deformity, like a baby born without arms and legs and a head the size of a golf ball.

But let’s not bash Russia by comparing it to America, even though it is baiting the U.S. into a new cold war, an act which this chart clearly shows is utterly suicidal. Let’s instead point out that Guatemala — yes, Guatemala — is ranked #67 on the list, above Russia.

EDITORIAL: Putin is our Hitler and Obama is our Chamberlain

EDITORIAL

Putin is our Hitler and Obama is our Chamberlain

“Nothing matters more to Mr. Putin and his oligarchs than the price of oil. Even with oil at $70 a barrel, Russia’s economy is in bad straits. Tension in the Middle East, even an outbreak of war, would push energy prices higher. A nuclear-armed Iran would, of course, be harmful to Russian national security, but prolonging the crisis is beneficial to the interests of the ruling elite: making money and staying in power.”

Garry Kasparov, The Wall Street Journal, 10/18/09

Quite possibly, the single most important point that we in the West need to understand about neo-Soviet Russia under proud KGB spy Vladimir Putin is that the country benefits tremendously from instability, terror and war in the Middle East.  Those who would suggest that Russia fears a nuclear-armed Islamic dictatorship in Iran simply do not appreciate how utterly dependent the neo-Soviet state always has been on the price of crude oil, or how much tension in the Middle East works to Russia’s advantage in making oil markets nervous and driving up the price.

Vladimir Putin: Lonely and Weak

Anders Aslund, writing in the Moscow Times:

Russia’s relations with its neighbors are worse than ever, and this is particularly true among the former Soviet republics. On Oct. 9, the Commonwealth of Independent States held its annual summit in Chisinau. The Nezavisimaya Gazeta headline said it all: “Summit in 30 Minutes. CIS Leaders Had Nothing to Tell One Another.”

Georgia left the alliance on Aug. 18. Among the remaining 11 members, only six presidents arrived — from Russia, Belarus, Ukraine, Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Kyrgyzstan, while the host country, Moldova, temporarily has no president. Even the strongest proponent of multilateral cooperation in the post-Soviet region, Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev, chose to stay at home. Needless to say, nothing was accomplished.

To aggravate things further, President Dmitry Medvedev refused to meet Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko and Belarussian President Alexander Lukashenko. Will Lukashenko attend another CIS meeting after that insult? Everybody left quickly after their half-hour meeting and even skipped the planned gala dinner. The CIS is Russia’s baby, and its failure is also Russia’s.

Annals of Neo-Soviet “Education”

The New York Times reports on the horrifying neo-sovietization of education:

Word spread this month among the faculty members of St. Petersburg State University: According to a document signed on Oct. 1, they have to submit their work to administrators for permission before publishing it abroad or presenting it at overseas conferences.

The order, which was circulated internally and made its way onto a popular Internet forum, says professors must provide their academic department with copies of texts to be made public outside Russia, so that they can be reviewed for violation of intellectual property laws or potential danger to national security.

Russia and the Dark Rider

Stratfor reports:

Russian opposition members rallied in Moscow’s Pushkin Square on April 14. The so-called Dissenters’ March was organized by Other Russia, an umbrella group that includes everyone from unrepentant communists and free-market reformers to far-right ultranationalists whose only uniting characteristic is their common opposition to the centralization of power under President Vladimir Putin’s administration.

Minutes after the march began, the 2,000 or so protesters found themselves outnumbered more than four to one by security forces. They quickly dispersed the activists, beating and briefly detaining those who sought to break through the riot-control lines. Among those arrested were chess-champion-turned-political-activist Garry Kasparov and Maria Gaidar, the daughter of Russia’s first post-Soviet reformist prime minister. Former Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov only avoided arrest because his bodyguards helped him to escape. A Reuters crew was permitted to capture the events and disseminate them to the West. A day later, another protest, albeit far smaller, was broken up in a similar way in St. Petersburg, though Kasparov was detained before the protest even began.

What gives? The protests were insignificant in both numerical and political terms. Moreover, with all that is going on in the world right now, the last thing the Putin government needs is to attract negative attention to itself. The answer becomes apparent when one considers Russia’s point in its historical cycle and the mounting pressures on Putin personally that have nothing whatsoever to do with “democracy.”

Russian Blood on the Sands of Doha

It’s hard to imagine how the Russian contingent at the year-end round-robin Tour Championships in Doha, Qatar, could have humiliated itself in a more spectacular fashion.