January 20, 2010 — Contents

WEDNESDAY JANUARY 20 CONTENTS

(1)  EDITORIAL:  Putin Blinks

(2)  EDITORIAL:  Russians and the Facts

(3)  EDITORIAL:  The Beast of Chechnya

(4)  Obama’s Russia Failure

(5)  Annals of Shamapova

EDITORIAL: Putin Blinks

 

EDITORIAL 

Putin Blinks 

We Russophobes scored a massive victory late last week when we forced down Vladimir Putin’s throat a laundry list of reforms of the European Court for Human Rights designed to help that court process its massive backlog of charges against Russia more efficiently. Russia was the only one of the 47 participating states which opposed the move, and when it was faced down by the whole of Europe there was only one thing for the cowardly Putin regime to do: Back down. 

So Putin blinked.   

EDITORIAL: Russians and the Facts

EDITORIAL

Russians and the Facts

Russia is a nation with a very interesting take on facts.  Basically, it believes there is no such thing.  The government acts on that belief, and the lemming-like population blithely allow them to do so.

Both the Communist and Tsarist dictatorships behaved this way, and the result that they became utterly blind to reality, including the pernicious problems that were undermining the nation’s foundations.  Not knowing about them they of course could not take necessary steps to resolve them, and the result was, twice in the course of just on century, total national collapse.

So, for instance, while in another country having an army like Napoleon’s roll into your capital and take it over would be viewed as a rather negative event, in Russia they tell their kids it was a brilliant masterstroke by Russia’s commanding general, the best way to assure victory.  Similarly, Russians celebrate the battle of Stalingrad, which literally raised a whole large Russian city to the ground, as another epic national victory.

Which brings us to a letter to the editor of the Washington Post written by Dmitry Peskov,  deputy chief of staff and press secretary to Vladimir Putin.

EDITORIAL: The Beast of Chechnya

Я – реальный представитель Кремля. Я – полностью человек Владимира Путина. Я никогда не предам Путина, никогда не подведу его. Клянусь Всевышним: я скорее 20 раз умру. Я – мужчина и уважаю Путина как мужественного человека, как настоящего мужчину, мудрого политика. А вот если направить ещё какого-то спецпредставителя на Кавказ, то ситуация станет лучше?

I am the Kremlin’s official representative in Chechnya.  I am fully Vladimir Putin’s man. I will never betray Putin, never fail him. I swear to God that I would sooner die twenty ttimes than do either. I  respect Mr. Putin as a courageous man, as a real man, a wise policymaker.

— Ramzan Kadyrov to the Russian publication Versiya, January 11, 2010.

You can judge a man’s character by the company he keeps. In this case, it’s hard to know which man is tarnished more by association with the other.  Suffice it to say that they are birds of a slim-covered feather.

Once again, Obama fails Miserably on Russia

LR publisher Kim Zigfeld has taken the craven Obama administration to task not once but twice in recent weeks for the outrageous failure of its appeasment policy towards Russia.  Now, Radio Free Europe’s Robert Coalson, one of the top Russia analysts working today, offers still more evidence of Obama’s abject failure:

When Presidents Dmitry Medvedev and Barack Obama met in Moscow last July, their primary aim was to push negotiations on a replacement for the expiring START nuclear-arms treaty.

The two leaders promised to deliver an agreement before the end of 2009 — a deadline that has since lapsed amid talks that are reportedly growing ever more contentious.

Still, the presidents were able to smile and shake hands over one key “deliverable”: an agreement that would allow the United States to transit lethal military cargo via Russian airspace to Afghanistan. That deal was said to mark an important uptick in bilateral cooperation on stabilizing Afghanistan, a goal that both sides emphasize is in their strategic interests.

Annals of Russia’s Female Tennis Sham

Ouch.

World #14 Maria “Shamapova” continued her humiliating losing ways in the opening round of the year’s first grand-slam tennis tournament, the Australian Open, getting thrashed in her very first match of the tournament by lowly World #58 Maria Kirilenko (who’s actually a threat to steal Sharapova’s “#1 Russian tennis babe” crown as well).  You just got here, darling!  Leaving so soon?

Maria, it must be admitted, is not the only Russian sham in town.