August 19, 2010 — Contents

MONDAY APRIL 19 CONTENTS

(1)  EDITORIAL:  What happened in the skies above Smolensk

(2)  EDITORIAL:  Are Russians the most corrupt on Earth?

(3)  EDITORIAL: Chuvashov and his Rotten Country

(4)  Why Putin Must Go

(5)  Russia, beaten in Chechnya

EDITORIAL: What happened in the Skies above Smolensk

EDITORIAL

What happened in the Skies above Smolensk

The smirking Russophile rabble would like you to believe that when nearly 100 Polish citizens, including the country’s president, perished when their jet liner crashed at a military airfield outside the city of Smolensk, the Poles themselves were to blame.

You should tell that rabble to drop dead.

EDITORIAL: Are Russians the most Corrupt People on this Earth?

EDITORIAL

Are Russians the most Corrupt People on this Earth?

We think so. We can’t see how any intelligent person could believe otherwise, not after reading yet another of Streetwise Professor’s brilliant posts about the topic, citing one of the most truly stunning incidents of official corruption we’ve ever read about in regard to any country.

SWP shocks readers by revealing that American computer maker Hewlett Packard has been caught paying gigantic sums to bribe the Russian government to buy their computers.  But it wasn’t just any department of the state regime that was collecting the cash — it was the Prosecutor General.

That’s right, the Prosecutor General.  The leading governmental agency charged with battling corruption was not only failing to battle it but was contributing to the expansion of corruption by accepting bribes itself, and not just any bribes, but bribes to purchase foreign-made computers rather than Russian ones.

Shocking as that revelation was, it’s nothing compared to the even more horrifying reality lurking beneath the surface.

EDITORIAL: Chuvashov and his Rotten Country

EDITORIAL

Chuvashov and his Rotten Country

You tell us, dear reader:  What does the murder of Moscow judge Eduard Chuvashov tell the world about Vladimir Putin’s Russia?

(a) That the Putin government was too stupid to realize that Chuvashov’s life was in a danger despite many threats arising from his sentencing of racist nationalist thugs?

(b) That the Putin government was too callous to care whether Chuvashov lived or perished?

(c) That the Putin regime wanted Chuvashov dead?

(d)  That the Putin regime was too incompetent to protect a marked judge even though it wanted to protect him?

We’re hard pressed to say, and just as hard pressed to say which would be the more horrifying if it were true.

We document in today’s issue Russia’s appalling misconduct in regard to the Polish plane crash, it’s equally revolting pandemic corruption at the highest levels of law enforcement, and now its bloody, brutal violence against the very few remaining Russians who would stand for civility and justice.  Viewing this smoking carnage, we see no hope for Russia. We cannot see how the nation can right itself when it is plagued by so many disasters all spawned by the malignant, evil regime of a clan of KGB spies that Russians worship as if they were demigods.

We believe this is the beginning of the end for Russia as we know it.

Hey, hey, ho, ho: Here’s why Putin has got to GO!

Vladislav Inozemtsev, editor of the Svobodnaya Mysl journal, writing in the Moscow Times:

Although I signed my name to the Internet petition under the slogan “Putin must go,” I only endorsed the main idea of the petition — that Russia must change the economic and political course set by Prime Minister Vladimir Putin — and not necessarily all of its individual points. For example, I don’t agree that President Dmitry Medvedev is the servile stooge that most of the petitioners make him out to be, and I am convinced that it is possible to modernize Russia without completely destroying the entire ruling regime. Moreover, in opposition to the words contained in the petition’s manifesto, I believe that Putin has done a lot of good things for Russia, and I don’t think that it is necessary to investigate how he became wealthy. Nonetheless, I do agree with the main thesis that Russia no longer needs Putin.

After becoming president in 2000, Putin singled out the country’s main enemies and threats and took steps to neutralize them. He also placed Russia’s chief sources of wealth under government control. It is unclear how much of this was motivated by Putin’s desire to gain personally, but what is clear is that he wanted bring stability to Russia after the chaotic and lawless 1990s.

But when a leader tries to enforce stability at all costs, it inevitably conflicts with the laws of nature. Imposing stability on a long-term basis is always an artificial process that requires keeping society within predefined limits. Those limits inevitably stifle the country’s development, diversification and private initiative, and they suffocate the business sector’s ability to be innovative and entrepreneurial. “Forced stability” is a recipe for political and economic stagnation and degradation.

There are five main reasons why Putin is an obstacle to development:

Russia, Defeated in Chechnya

Paul Goble reports:

Tomorrow, the Chechen authorities will celebrate the first anniversary of the end of the Russian “counter-terrorist operation” (KTO) there not because Chechnya has become less violent during the intervening months – it hasn’t – but rather because the end of the KTO formalized Moscow’s deference to Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov. In a commentary in advance of that date, Sergey Markedonov, one of Moscow’s most thoughtful commentator on the North Caucasus, notes that “the republic powers that be [in Chechnya] consider [the end of the KTO] as virtually the main achievement of the last decade” because of the shift in power it represents.

But both because the violence in Chechnya continues – indeed, according to some measures, Markedonov says, it has increased – and because violence has spread not only to other parts of the North Caucasus and into central Russia as well, many in Moscow are asking whether the central Russian government ended the KTO there too soon. Answering that question, Markedonov continues, is not as simple as it might appear. On the one hand, the lifting of the KTO in Chechnya reflected the reality that the target of the KTO was “separatist terrorism” which over the last several years, particularly after Beslan, has been largely displaced by the Islamist kind.

Today, the Moscow analyst says, “terrorist acts are committed on the territory of Chechnya” just as they were before, but now “it is hardly possible on this basis to consider Chechnya a more dangerous place than Ingushetia or Daghestan” or even hitherto quieter places like Kabardino-Balkaria. Consequently, he argues, “a return to the KTO regime in Chechnya would scarcely change the situation in a radical way both in various North Caucasus subjects and in the Russian capital,” a disquieting Markedonov says those who advocate doing so need to take into consideration.