EDITORIAL
“Salt” in Russia’s Wounds
The horrifying new Angelina Jolie movie, “Salt,” has our vote for the worst. and most well-deserved, publicity Russia has ever received in its sordid history.
In an amazing bit of timing, “Salt” was released almost at the same moment as the spy scandal involving Anna Chapman, dramatizing for all the world to see the dangers of Russian sleeper cell of spies being turned loose to wreck havoc on the American government, and the world. Had this not been the case, Russophiles would surely have tried to claim that sleep cells like these did not exist. Now, they are left to mumble and stand utterly exposed.
The image of Russians depicted in the film is truly shocking, bloodthirsty and barbaric.
Russians are shown invading the White House, slaughtering innocent people left and right, and seeking to use an nuclear attack on the Middle East, launched by Russians, as a basis to blame and destabilize the United States. Their actions are so barbarically brutal in cruelly murdering the innocent young man who is Jolie’s love interest, that Jolie’s character is turned against her Russian sponsors and sets out on a mission to destroy them.
The world of Russia shown in this film (and in others, like “The Bourne Supremacy”) is, in other words, the same world we have been depicting here on this blog for years now. It is as world of horrific violence and self-destruction, of pathological ideological hatred, of crime and corruption beyond all human imagining.
In fact, remembering names like Politkovskaya and Estemirova and Starvoitova and Litvinenko, one might even say that the image of Russia contained in “Salt” is not harsh enough to be fully accurate. But, at least, one can say that Russia is no longer able to pull the wool over the eyes of a clueless Western world, even though some helpless idiots like Barack Obama remain in the dark.
A world this bleak must surely collapse, just as the USSR did not so long ago.
La Russophobe 
@Anna Chapman
Anna “Chapman” Kushchenko.
In a tell-all interview with the Daily Telegraph, Alex Chapman, whose name Anna decided to keep, reveals such things as how the couple met and what her father, who Alex says was a former KGB agent, was like.
Chapman, who is English and was married to Anna for four years, from 2002 to 2006, told the Telegraph: “Whether or not she’s a spy, who can say, but when I read about her being arrested it wasn’t that much of a surprise to be honest.”
As for Anna’s father, Vasily Kushchenko, a Russian diplomat who still works for the foreign ministry according to the Guardian, Chapman says he had a “huge influence’ on her and was a “scary” man.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/07/03/anna-chapmans-ex-husband_n_634747.html
Your criticism of Russians (here much more than just of “Putin’s Russia”!) looks convincing, but whether one agrees with it or not what’s missing is any idea of the origin of such “impossible” contrast with though imperfect but much more reasonable Western world. It is needed because of the formal proximity of Russian and European culture (same race, “Judeo-Christian” tradition, high level of Russian education – they often mock American education and culture as very low ones, by the way, etc.). Well-known references to their huge territory and other “historical” features are either too general or not convincing/fundamental enough. The absence of such deeper understanding is the origin of various Western confusions on the subject, contrary to easily acknowledged differences from “obviously alien” civilisations of Asia and Africa.
After all, irrespective of personal preferences, if these two worlds are indeed so different, it would be advisable to see not only how but also why (which is finally the same).
A similar missing explanation syndrome applies to a smaller statement in this post about Obama’s regrettable ignorance of the truth. Obama doesn’t really look so much naïve, especially taking into account that in this case one can only speak of course about a whole “team”, “administration” and eventually political tendency including rather well informed people, especially today. Why don’t they see, for many years, what looks so obvious (and important) to you, is it just their ignorance?
An interesting case can also be found here in Ukraine, where about half of the population would rather be on “your” side and another half on the strictly opposite side (both very stably), with Russia being very close, in any sense, and any geographical, ethnic or linguistic differences being either small or simply absent.
Ah, these puzzling differences between “us” and “them”… Ideology was such a convenient (though wrong) explanation in former times. So what’s the origin of the disease, doctor? It can never be cured, can it?
Ahhh…It’s always so immensely filfilling to watch slack-jawed servants of the
State Department regurgitate the plots of Hollywood films with inane wonderment. This has really made my day :)
” (and in others, like “The Bourne Supremacy”) is, in other words, the same world we have been depicting here on this blog for years now. It is as world of horrific violence and self-destruction, of pathological ideological hatred, of crime and corruption beyond all human imagining.”
You’re kidding me, right ?
Because If you’re serious, then this is a whole new standard of psychobabble never before heard, even from a master like you. If you had bothered actually watching the “Bourne” films, especially the parts that deal with Russia, you might have actually dicovered that the narrative is just a tiny bit diffrent. You might have noted that Bourne came to Russia in order to make peace with himself after finding out that corrupt and twisted CIA power-brokers poisoned his mind and had him kill a Russian politican who had gained immense popularity at home throught nationalizing stretegic industries to prevent them being looted by Berezovsky-like types. Or did you miss that bit completely ? If you would, point to the scene in the film that supports your diseased and half-baked notions of “horrific voilence” and “pathalogical ideological hatred.” And while you’re at it, next time you try to use a primary source, film or other wise, at least make sure the film actually supports your psychobabble.
Mystery over Russian [GRU] general found dead on Turkish beach
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/sep/01/russian-general-yuri-ivanov