EDITORIAL
Volodya “Girly Boy” Putin
Mickey Roarke as a Russian baddie in Ironman II
Vladimir Putin likes to hold himself out to the world as being a tough guy, a macho stud, but in fact he’s not just a girly man, he’s more like a girly little boy.
Case in point: When Iron Man II opened in China — it’s yet another film, like The Bourne Supremacy or Eastern Promises or Indiana Jones or RocknRolla, that features a Russian villain as Russia descends once again into neo-Soviet darkness — the Chinese censored all the references to Russia.
In a hilarious charade that’s being mocked by Chinese movie-goers, China apparently decided that if it were to allow a movie to screen as written making references to a villain being from Russia (in the film, depicted by Mickey Roarke in rare sleazeball form), the Russians would get offended. Apparently, based on their course of dealings with Vladimir Putin, this is the conclusion that the Chinese have reached.
And who’s to say they are wrong? The world has already watched Putin shut down every critical venue on Russian broadcast television, starting with the “Kukli” political satire program that dared to depict Russia’s supreme ruler in doll form. Putin jailed Mikhail Khodorkovsky rather than be publicly criticized and challenged for the presidency by him. He murdered Anna Politkovskaya and Natalia Estemirova and Stanislav Markelov for mocking his authority.
So why wouldn’t Putin be shocked and offended to see China, which only allows a tiny handful of foreign movies to screen in its theaters each year, release a movie that recognizes a villain to be Russian? Putin is, of course, a childish coward who is no more capable of facing civil dissent than were any of his Soviet or Tsarist predecessors, and he is more than capable of lashing out in self-destructive fashion against anyone who might dare to question his authority.
That Russia is led by such an immature little thug goes a long way towards explaining why Russians don’t rank in the top 125 countries of the world for life expectancy, have no credible allies and work for $3/hour.
La Russophobe 
“yet another film, like The Bourne Supremacy or Eastern Promises or Indiana Jones or RocknRolla, that features a Russian villain as Russia descends once again into neo-Soviet darkness ”
Wait. Hollywood is once again showing its bigotry – and you blame Russia for it?!
Do you remember the righteous outrage of the American propagandists when Russia made the movie “Brother 2” in which Americans are villains? We were told it was a start of the new Cold War.
But when the brain-dead redneck Hollywood continues to use Russians as its stereotypical villains in their cartoon-like movies for their mentally retarded audiences – that’s Russia’s fault?!
Yup, Russia’s fault. Because Russia DESERVES to be the villain. It voted a PROUD KGB SPY as president, and he’s buzzing American shores with nuclear bombers.
Sorry if in your drunken stupor you did not notice, but America has done neither of those things to Russia.
A person with the slightest clue would be concerned about the world’s most powerful country repeatedly depicting Russia as a villain. He would ask what Russia had done and how it could change. A Soviet-style stooge would just blame the messenger, kill him if possible, and go on sinking into the mire of failure.
Guess which kind of person YOU are, dude!
“@It voted a PROUD KGB SPY as president, and he’s buzzing American shores with nuclear bombers.
Sorry if in your drunken stupor you did not notice, but America has done neither of those things to Russia.”
You can’t be seriously seriously serious, can you ? You are, I trust, aware, that even as Gorbachev, may god damn his soul, was drawing down our troop deployments in Eastern Europe and dismantling countless military units, the Western leaders who made countless assurances that NATO would not expand any further back-tracked on EVERY SINGLE ONE of those assurances ?You, I trust, are aware, that Gorbachev allowed the re-unification of Germany with the understanding, given to him by then Secretary of State Baker, that NATO would remain within it’s circa 1989 borders ? You are aware, I trust, that even as in the post-Soviet era, when outlays for the military fell by 8 times, and some of our bombers and/or fighters didn’t even go on regular patrols, the US and its NATO puppets buzzed our airspace with their aircraft countless times every day ? You are aware that through the 1990s and into the early 2000s, the US never stopped attempting to overfly our borders with B-52 carrying nuclear cruise missiles ?
You can’t possibly be that thick that you attempt to cast our resumption of strategic nuclear patrols as an act of aggression, even thought your home country had been buzzing Russian shores with nuclear bombers for the better part of two post Cold War decades.
Somehow, while Yeltsin was drunkenly trapaising around the world and failing to mount any credible defense of Russian national security, and the USAF was overflying Russian borders with impunity, you didn’t utter so much as a peep. Yet, when the strategic nuclear balance is restored, you throw a hissy fit. Oh, the irony is delicious.
LA RUSSOPHOBE RESPONDS:
You have no evidence that the US was buzzing Russia’s borders with nuclear bombers in the 1990s or the 2000s. In fact, you offer no evidence OF ANY KIND to support ANY of your crazy statements. Your illiterate drunken vomit makes Russia look like a nation of simpering gorillas.
Russia buzzed the US coast LAST YEAR with nuclear bombers. The US didn’t return the favor. You are lying scoundrel, clear evidence of why Russia is such an abject failure not just as a country but as a civilization.
Alyosha,
She does not understand a word of it, and will never understand a word of it, because she is a hypocrite of the lowest order.
She doesn’t even want to take a wild guess as to why the US suffered a devastating attack like 9/11.
She’s so blind to the truth, it’s painful. But then again, what can one expect from a hysterical female?
She’s also pissed off that no Russian man wants anything to do with her.
Dima wrote: “She is a hypocrite of the lowest order. She doesn’t even want to take a wild guess as to why the US suffered a devastating attack like 9/11. But then again, what can one expect from a hysterical female?”
Her being female and hysterical has nothing to do with this. She is no worse than the American public opinion in general. You are totally unfair to her.
The most important concept in the American foreign policy philosophy is that of “American exclusivity”. Americans are in every way superior to the people of other countries, and therefore the laws and morality don’t apply to Americans. When an American ship invade Iranian territorial waters and shoot down the Iranian airliner with almost 300 passengers on board – the ship commanders and sailors are treated as heroes and are awarded medals for “heroism”. When US submarines invade Russian territorial waters and create accidents that destroy Russian submarines – that’s USA’s right. But when two empty Russian planes accidentally enter US territorial air and leave without doing any harm – that’s a “nuclear attack”!
When USA tries to incorporate Ukraine and Georgia into NATO and holds military exercises there – that’s “free countries doing free things”. But when Russia retaliates by holding a small exercise in Nicaragua – that’s “a declaration of war” against America!
That’s how Americans are taught in schools, and that’s how the mass media in the West presents things: USA is to other countries what humans are to chimps.
Larussophobe wrote: “Russia DESERVES to be the villain. It voted a PROUD KGB SPY as president, and he’s buzzing American shores with nuclear bombers. Sorry if in your drunken stupor you did not notice, but America has done neither of those things to Russia.”
Wrong. USA voted a PROUD CIA Head G. Bush as president, and it has done much worse:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Submarine_incident_off_Kildin_island
The Submarine Incident off Kildin island was a collision between the US Navy nuclear submarine USS Baton Rouge and the Russian nuclear submarine K-276 Kostroma near the Russian naval base of Severomorsk, on 11 February 1992. The incident took place when the US unit was working in an undercover mission, apparently aimed at intercepting Russian military communications.
Political consequences. The incident produced intense embarrassment in Washington.[9] The Russian navy accused the United States of continuing intelligence operations around Russia’s home waters, despite the end of the cold war. All this flurry of reactions prompted the US navy to stop some specific submarine activities off Russian bases.[15] This measure, however, didn’t prevent a later incident in March 1993, when USS Grayling rammed Delta class submarine K-407 Novomoskovsk.[16]
http://www.siberianlight.net/kursk-torpedoed-by-us-sub/
Kursk torpedoed by US Sub?
The latest claims come from Maurice Stradling, a British defence expert who, despite previously saying that the Kursk sank due to an on-board accident, now believes it was the Americans what done it.
“On the balance of probabilities, the Kursk was sunk by an American MK-48 torpedo,” said Mr Stradling, formerly a senior member of the British Defence Ministry. […] The new explanation for the Kursk’s sinking is based on film footage of a hole in the side of the vessel, and evidence placing US submarines in the area at the time it was sunk.
The French film shows stills of the Kursk raised above the water after being salvaged, with a precise circular hole in its right side. The hole clearly bends inwards, consistent with an attack from outside the submarine. […] The film suggests the attack happened while two US submarines, the Toledo and Memphis, were shadowing the Kursk in a routine military exercise. […]
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VOR,
Here is an interesting article from Dr. Paul Craig Roberts, former Assistant Secretary US Treasury, Associate Editor Wall Street Journal, Professor of Political Economy Center for Strategic and International Studies Georgetown University Washington DC:
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article25603.htm
Larussophobe wrote: “Yup, Russia’s fault. Because Russia DESERVES to be the villain. It voted a PROUD KGB SPY as president, and he’s buzzing American shores with nuclear bombers. Sorry if in your drunken stupor you did not notice, but America has done neither of those things to Russia.”
So, you don’t like the Russian foreign policy, and think that this justifies Hollywood’s portrayal of Russian businessmen as the worst villains in the World? Don’t you claim that you are fighting for the freedom to the Russian oligarch businessman Khodorkovsky?! Isn’t it exactly because of the stereotype portrayal of Russian oligarchs as villains that the international public opinion doesn’t care about Khodorkovsky’s suffering? And you want to perpetuate this indifference and bigotry?!
Go to the comments on this blog under:
EDITORIAL: Saakashvili, Supremely Triumphant
June 1, 2010 · 23 Comments
Go to “Boris'” comment, and note how he’s proud that the Russian government piggybacks on organized crime in order to “control things.”
Note how proud “Boris” is that Russia (sovok union at the time) blew up Chernobyl in order to “control” Europe – scare them away from building nuclear power plants, so that Europe would not wean itself off Russian gas.
When Russia attacked Georgia, it launched cyberattacks against Georgia, and dumped US bonds on the world markets – at a loss.
Russia launched cyberattacks against Estonia.
Russia sells nuclear materials to Iran.
Russia is certainly correctly portrayed as a villain.
As is the Russian mafia that emanates from Russia.
Elmer,
What’s your point? That Boris is a scumball? Yes, I agree. Being a russophobe, Boris is indeed a lowlife. Duh.
No one denies that Russia is in decline and losing population. There must be a reason outside of the USA. It must be the leadership.
No one denies that you are just butt-hurt because you or someone in your family didn’t get to do enough killing in Indochina.
35 million people have left Russia in the last 35 years (Ministry of Foreign Affairs data). In that time, 3 million have immigrated legally, mostly from the republics of the former USSR.
Every year, in accordance with programs for the acceptance of migrants and refugees from Russia
56,000 people leave for the USA
13,000 people, despite everything, choose Israel
12,000 people go to meet the Australian quota
9,000 smartly choose Germany
7,800 prefer Canada
6,900 marry foreigners and for some reason also leave the country.
Total 103,300 people per year, And of course they are of the most educated, businesslike, and energetic. Bear in mind that these are the official figures of those who registered officially for permanent resident abroad status.
Who’s counting those who leave on tourist, student, and work visas and never come back?
By the way, only 11,700,000 of Russia’s citizens have passports for foreign travel.
I don’t know LES about 35 million in 35 years. That’s a million a year which sounds like an exaggerated number. Exit from the U.S.S.R. was incredibly difficult, so I doubt that between 1975 (35 years ago) and 1992 (no more U.S.S.R.) as many as 1 million persons a year would emigrate. I may be wrong, I don’t have the data. Just a gut feeling.
But 103,300 a year now sounds very credible, and that’s a lot for a country that sees population decline due to alcoholism, absence of good health care and other social causes.
Larussophobe wrote: “Yup, Russia’s fault. Because Russia DESERVES to be the villain. It voted a PROUD KGB SPY as president, and he’s buzzing American shores with nuclear bombers. Sorry if in your drunken stupor you did not notice, but America has done neither of those things to Russia.”
America has done much-much worse things than elect an ex-spy and violate territorial borders of other countries. Just look at what has happened in Iraq and Afghanistan. In fact, even America’s close NATO ally Turkey (which John McCaine calls “the beacon of democracy”) was so outraged by US actions that it produced a virulently anti-American and anti-semitic Hollywood-style action movie, which became the most popular film in Turkish history. Are you happy with this anti-American film?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valley_of_the_Wolves_Iraq
“Valley of the Wolves Iraq” (“Kurtlar Vadisi Irak”) is a popular Turkish film from 2006 based on a television series of the same name that has been a hit in Turkey for several seasons. The movie is set in northern Iraq during the American Occupation of Iraq. There are some references to other real events such as the Abu Ghraib prison scandal and the container shipping incident where prisoners were suffocated and shot was based on true events that occurred in Afghanistan.[1]
The film has been criticized as anti-American, anti-Christian, anti-Kurd and antisemitic, and was banned in some theaters. Filmed with a budget of $14 million, it is the most expensive Turkish film ever made.[4] While the Wall Street Journal characterized it as “a cross between ‘American Psycho’ in uniform and the Protocols of the Elders of Zion”,[8] Turkey’s parliamentary speaker Bulent Arinc described it as “absolutely magnificent”.[9]
The movie opens with a fictionalized depiction of a real-life incident: the arrest on July 4, 2003 of 11 allied Turkish special forces soldiers and 13 civilians. Sam William Marshall (Billy Zane) in the northern Iraqi Kurdistan town of Sulaymaniyah. The Turkish soldiers suppose that this is an ordinary visit from their NATO allies, but this time is different. This arrest is infamous in Turkey as the so-called “Hood event”. The soldiers were led out of their headquarters at gunpoint, with hoods over their heads and subsequently detained for sixty hours before being released. This was the first time such an incident had taken place between the two NATO allies. One of the Turkish officers, unable to bear the shame of the hooding, committed suicide.
* In one sequence, American soldiers raid an Iraqi wedding and massacre a number of civilians, which might allude to allegations of a wedding party massacre in Mukaradeeb on May 19, 2004.
* U.S. soldiers torture detainees in Abu Ghraib prison, which includes a female soldier making a human pyramid, referring to the Abu Ghraib torture and prisoner abuse. It is the first depiction of actions by American soldiers at the Abu Ghraib prison on film.
* While captives are transported on a long journey in a container on a truck, one guard says to the other: “They might suffocate in the container because there is no fresh air supply”. The truck stops, the American guard gets off the truck and fires hundreds of bullet-holes into the container with an automatic weapon “in order to make holes for the air to get in”, and as a result many detainees are injured or get killed. A similar event is reported to have occurred in Afghanistan after the battle for Mazari Sharif on November 9, 2001, with Taliban soldiers in the container and soldiers of the Afghan Northern Alliance as their guardians, as described in the documentary film Massacre at Mazar by Irish filmmaker Jamie Doran. This event is also reenacted in the film The Road to Guantanamo.
* The film features a Jewish-American U.S. Army doctor (Gary Busey) who removes organs from injured civilian prisoners to sell to rich people in New York, London and Tel Aviv for transplantation.
The film’s scriptwriter Bahadir Ozdener has defined the film by saying: “Our film is a sort of political action. Maybe 60 or 70 percent of what happens on screen is factually true. Turkey and America are allies, but Turkey wants to say something to its friend. We want to say the bitter truth. We want to say that this is wrong.[10] ”
* The film has pulled in record audiences on its release in Turkey, capitalizing on widespread opposition to the Iraq War.
* When asked about the factual nature of the scenario, Bülent Arınç, the Chairman of the Turkish Parliament replied “yes, this was exactly as it happened”. He called the movie “an extraordinary film that will go into history”. [12] Istanbul Mayor, Kadir Topbaş told the Associated Press that the movie “was very successful — a soldier’s honor must never be damaged.”[14]
* Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul states that “the film is no worse than some of the productions of Hollywood studios“.[13]
Jewish Communities. The Central Council of Jews, a Jewish-German organization, expressed their opinion that ‘Valley of the Wolves – Iraq’ holds antisemitic views, and is racist. They requested German cinemas to stop showing the film.
* On Comedy Central, Jon Stewart lampooned Billy Zane and Gary Busey, both American actors, for appearing in the film. Several clips were played from American films portraying terrorists of Muslim, Arab or Middle Eastern extraction. The segment juxtaposes the stereotypes of Arabs and Muslims in Hollywood to the reactions of mainstream American media pundits regarding the film.
* The U.S. Army recommended that Army personnel overseas not approach cinemas in which the movie is played. [19]
See also “Kurtlar Vadisi”, the TV series version of the film. An episode of this series that depicted Israeli Mossad agents spying inside Turkey and kidnapping Turkish babies was roundly criticized by the Israeli government and media. [2] The Turkish government’s refusal to act on Israeli requests to more strictly censor the show had contributed to a deepening of a row between the two countries, culminating in Turkey’s threat to recall ambassador to Israel in January 2010.[3]
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Larussophobe wrote: “A person with the slightest clue would be concerned about the world’s most powerful country repeatedly depicting Russia as a villain. He would ask what Russia had done and how it could change. A Soviet-style stooge would just blame the messenger, kill him if possible, and go on sinking into the mire of failure. Guess which kind of person YOU are, dude!”
A person with the slightest clue would be concerned about billions of people in Muslim countries, China, Russia and Latin America seeing USA as a villain. He would ask what USA had done and how it could change. A Bush-style stooge would just blame the messenger, kill him if possible, and go on sinking into the mire of failure. Guess which kind of person YOU are, dude!
I’m telling you, VOR, Zigfeld employs the logic of a typical female.
So what if somebody made this or that movie, it’s just entertainment business. Some people would like it, and some will strongly criticize it just as you described.
That’s what free speech is about. In the final analysis nobody forces anybody to watch or not to watch, and the consumers will decide, as always, whether to spend or not to spend $10
So, you don’t mind all the anti-american, anti-semitic and holocaust-denying films made in Iran, Turkey and Arab countries? Would you like to see them widely distributed all over the World? Would you like anti-semitic holocaust-denying propaganda on the movie screen near you, RV?
The U.S. Army recommended that Army personnel overseas not approach cinemas in which the movie is played. [19]
As a Jew, how would you like to be passing by a movie theater in, say, Crown Heights in Brooklyn right after the screening of such an anit-semitic movie, portraying Jews as murders?
Unfortunately the IDF has just handed Islamists a major propaganda coup in its boarding operation gone wrong.
The amazing thing is that film clearly shows the “peaceful” activists assaulting IDF troops with steel bars.
Holy ****, are you also an apologist for IDF War crimes and violations of internationl law ? Man, you get around !
Come on, even one as deranged as you cannot claim that the israeli invasion of a flotilla heading to another country in international waters is anything but a heinous act of deprativity and immorality. I understand that you enjoy watching people die without adequate food, water, electricty and sanitation, but don’t interfere with the wishes of others to provide the most downtrodden people in the world with the most basic supplies. By the way, the “islamists,” included Nobel laureate, Mariead Corrigan.
Actually, the Israeli’s offered to allow all aid to transit through an Israeli port, their only requirement was that they were to inspect it to ensure no weapons were included.
I do condemn their excessive use of force in this instance, however, please note that the embargo/blockade of Gaza is also supported and enforced by Egypt.
But Alexei, will you condemn the Russian facilitation and leadership of Abkhazian and South Ossetian war crimes and violations of international law?
Including the heinous act of deprativity and immorality that was and is the ethnic cleansing of Georgians from Abkhazia and South Ossetia?
I have been to the West Bank too many times and gone through too many Israeli checkpoints to trust any promises made by anyone in that country as to humanitarian aid.
I will condemn said “Abkhazian and South Ossetian war crimes” as soon as they are proven to have occured. See, unlike the very short war in the Caucasus, initiated and pursued by Georgia with the utmost ignorance of international law, the Israeli oppression of sovereign palestine territory has been going on for 4 decades now, and the depravity, savagery and complete disregard for human life and property displayed by the IDF and the politicos that apologize for it has been documented many times over. You may want to look at some reports filed on the subject by the Israeli human rights organization B’Tselem, or, for that matter, the International Court of Justice at the Hague.
While the situation in Palsetine is a clear violation of international laws and norms, a perversion of basic human morality, and a miscarriage of justice of historical proportions, the whole narrative about how Georgians were ethnically cleansed from lands that never belonged to them in the first place, strikes me as overtly and blatantly political, in line with the much-beloved western narrative about how vicious Kremlin neo-stalinists are rebuilding a Soviet empire. One only needs to note that the only nation still pushing the “ethnic cleansing” narrative is georgia itself, and yet even today, it cannot produce a single shred of meaningful evidence, not even the meanest name or adress, suggesting that Georgians were systematically targeted or killed. While there were undoubtedly georgian civilians who were caught in the crossfire as their army invaded and the local fighters retaliated, this hardly qualifies as ethnic cleansing. You want ethnic cleansing, think Rwanda or the Kosovo “Liberation” Army.
I would not watch films like this, but who am I to tell others they can’t? Let everybody make, publish and show what they want, and the market will decide. Free speech must be preserved or life itself is not worth living.
Just my view