Putin Expands Crackdown as Obama Clings to ‘Reset’
The words George W. Bush spoke at Brdo Castle in Brdo Pri Kranju, Slovenia, in June 2001 are hard to distinguish from those of Barack Obama. Both in their content and their consequences, the devastating impact of these speeches may imperil U.S. foreign policy for ages to come.
In Slovenia, Bush referred to the Cold War as a relic of the past, and declared it was “time to move beyond suspicion and towards straight talk, beyond mutually assured destruction and towards mutually earned respect.” Infamously, he also said he had looked Russia’s new ruler Vladimir Putin in the eye, “got a sense of his soul,” and found him to be a trustworthy partner. We were told that Putin’s long history as a proud KGB spy was irrelevant — this was a new man and a new Russia.
This was just what Putin wanted to hear. Long before Bush’s first term had ended, Putin had launched a vicious crackdown on the forces of democracy in Russia. Dead were Sergei Yushenkov and Yuri Shchekochikhin, arrested were Mikhail Trepashkin and Mikhail Khodorkovsky.
Putin left office just as Obama was coming in, and Obama adopted the Bush doctrine regarding Putin’s supposed successor Dmitri Medvedev, inviting him to Washington and munching cheeseburgers with him. Obama brought in Michael McFaul from the Hoover Institution to implement a “reset” of relations with Russia, a policy which would make the Bush doctrine towards Russia look like that of Ronald Reagan by comparison.
Putin was overjoyed. The Americans had taken the bait and would drop their guard as he used Medvedev to bide his time and return to power as president for life. That now accomplished, Putin has moved on to a second phase of his crackdown.
This week, it was announced that opposition leader Alexei Navalny would go the way of Mikhail Khodorkovsky, the only difference being that instead of being accused of stealing oil — as was Khodorkovsky — Navalny would be accused of stealing timber. Same result, though. Ten years or so in Siberia to cool off any thoughts of challenging Putin for power.
Back in June, security forces acting at the order of Putin carried out almost a dozen deeply disturbing raids on leaders of the Russian democracy movement and their families, seizing computers and other things they believed to be evidence of illegal activity. Navalny was included. The move smacked of the USSR, and once again — of course — the Obama administration did nothing. It is clear that the Putin regime took this silence as an invitation to proceed with arrests and prosecutions of key opposition leaders like Navalny.
The raids came in the wake of Putin’s signing a new law providing for draconian sanctions (a year’s pay or more) for opposition figures who violate Putin’s edicts about how protest can occur. They seem to signal that Putin intends to use the same tactics with the current opposition forces that he used with Khodorkovsky, the last man to directly confront Putin for power: jail in remote Siberia on trumped-up charges of embezzlement.
Only a few months ago, the MSM was breathlessly reporting on Navalny leading a “White Revolution” that would challenge Putin’s authority and drag Russia out of its retrograde neo-Soviet trajectory. This malignant propaganda went hand-in-hand with the Obama administration’s line on Russia, namely that with the right encouragement we’d see the development of a trustworthy democratic partner. The prosecution of Navalny proves how utterly irresponsible this reporting was. The only thing that has changed in Russia is that Putin has become more repressive than ever as Obama has winked and nodded.
Putin is also pushing forward with a series of additional legal reforms designed to crush the spirit of the Internet and to eliminate foreign support for the democracy movement. He’s been unafraid to use neo-Soviet show trials to drive home his point that public opposition to his rule will no longer be tolerated. The persecution of the Pussy Riot collective is the latest case in point.
The Russian attitude towards the future is so bleak that, just as in Soviet times, many Russians are now heading for the exits. As Russia begins to feel the harsh effects of this brain drain and its population dwindles, it is not hard to imagine yet another wave of reforms that will roll back freedom to leave the country, the same “solution” to failed policies that was adopted by the USSR.
America’s complicity in the neo-Sovietization of Russia will be a permanent black mark on the national honor. Just days before the charges against Navalny were announced, McFaul appeared on the Kremlin’s state-sponsored propaganda network Russia Today and strongly sided with Putin. He complimented Putin in language eerily similar to that used by Bush; he jeered at Republican efforts to propound human rights legislation challenging the Putin crackdown; and he hinted that the U.S. was sympathetic to Russia’s support for Syria.
The treachery of Obama and McFaul harkens back to Neville Chamberlain, who naively thought he could placate and defang a monstrous dictator. Obama’s “reset” policy has resulted in a devastating rollback of human rights and American values in Russia, a rollback that would not have occurred if Obama had been willing to stand up for his country’s values rather than seek short-term and illusory political gains.
Vladimir Putin enjoys the support of 67% Russian citizens.
Russian democracy certainly still has a long way to go, but the situation (for the vast majority of Russians, who you ignore), is far better than the Yeltsin years.
So the Russians are putting some rich folk in jail, so what, I wish we put some of our own banksters behind bars. The Pussy Riot girls got exactly what they wanted, publicity.
You a making a mountain out of a mole hill. Then again it has been a depressingly bad news period for Anti-Russian writers like yourself. Russia, to your chagrin, just keeps getting better and more integrated into the global system.
Jail those rich folk! Who cares about due process! The children want blood!
(another data point showing that using the word “bankster” is a sign of mental issues)
And the bailouts and subprime lending are overwhelming evidence the contraction of banker and gangster, if anything, praises with faint damns.
We should presume you dislike TEA?
It is clear that you have pride in reviving Russia (just as the Germans had in reviving Germany under Hitler). Since 1990 I have been visiting St. Petersburg and around abouts every year. I have one very overwhelming impression, intensified with each visit. And? I can see why the there was a revolution against the Czar’s aristocratic rich. The contrast between rich and poorer and poor is depressing, and potentially revoloutionary one day. Leave the center of the town and go to outlining areas still in the city and more poverty is evident. Get out into the small hamlets around it and the stench of poverty is literally there. I visit a Russian prof. who must work at two uni.s to get pay for one, who must work some weeks in the Summer for free or lose the joy, hell, she will lose it anyway because she has refused sex with her Putin appointed superior. (Yes, the Puntinites do more than just screw the people when an eye falls upon a victim). This prof. is right now caring for her mother some 200 miles south-east from Moscow. Village is emptying out, no stores, no pharmacy and no doctor–other than about 20 miles by foot. No buses, no trains and damn few autos. That is your Russia that you do not want to see as you gleefuly stare at the renewal of a robber oil-baron (who stole it from other Russians) and his created circles and concentric circles of rich, all of which constitute the new RULING class–just like the aristocracy of old.
What is the basis for the revival in Russia) Russian industry? No, foreign firms settle there and just few Russian ones here and there. Almost all minor and major stores in downtown St. P. are West German and American filiates. Oil is the source of wealth (until it runs out) allowing the formation of circles of the rich and richer. That is the tainted face of new-very OLD Russia. It is no wonder that Putin walks the very steps of the Czar when he struts through the Kremilin. The resistance is coming from a truely self-forming middle class which, just like in China, is chaffing at the restraints imposed by the ruling class. And as in China, the power structure of the ruling class is clamping down the recalcitrant protesters. It is this middle class, not the parasites around Putin, that are the future, if there is one. The difference between Nicholas and Putin is that Putin controls a bought off army!!! And that makes for a dim future.
Let the international economic system of which Russia is a part go into a crisis in which oil can no longer exploit West. Europe or the USA, and the Putin card house of corruption will topple, even with the hungering military.
P.S. Putin enjoys 67% popularity, a figure quite modest relative to the 98% popularity enjoyed by Hitler in his “peaceful” days. Think about it. A bit of fleeting popularity does not make for a healthy society.
So from your observations Russia is still a very poor country incapible of using its natural recourses and brain power because of their antiquated political and economic system. I had friends to visit Russia last year and noted the people did not smile and appeared to be repressed. As I see it Russia has given up its soul.
This might come as a surprise to you but I agree with your observations. Russia has a long way to go, but she is on the right track. Your Putin/Hitler comparison is excessive to the point of paranoia.
It would be unfair not to give credit where credit is due for Russia’s recent progress. And there has been great progress. Oil of course is the main engine, but the other sectors of the economy are improving as well. The country is practically debt free. How many “healthy” societies can make that claim?
Vladimir Putin’s own policies have created the conditions for the rise of Russia’s “self forming” middle class. In this, as others have stated, Vladimir could end up being a victim of his own success. But I wouldn’t bet the farm on it.
A very gradual transition to a more pluralistic political system is the most likely scenario for Russia. A sincere “West” could certainly assist with that.
No, I think rabid anti-Putinism by (some)Westerners thinly hides other more sinister motivations other than “spreading freedom and democracy”. I’ll leave what to your imagination. Napoleon and Hitler come to mind.
Putin remarked that the greatest catastrophy of the 20th Century was the collapse of the Soviet Union. That was no catastrophy, rather an event worthy of a celebration equal to the end of the Nazi Reich–only that the death total of the “Evil Empire” was greater in absolute numbers than Hitler’s record–and you know that Stalin had his own phase of liquidating Jews . (Don’t you agree that the Soviet Union was “evil” in the same class of tyrannies as Nazi Germany? I await your answer, as it should be revealing–Putin lover.) Certainly Putin’s support of Assad in Syria (with his egregious killings) is a bit “Hiterlish” and the support of Iran with its announced desire to terminate Israel resonates a bit “Hiterish”. Or?
Speaking of Adolf, Hitler (proclaiming peace and seeking integration into the international world of that time) in 1937 had acheived more rejuvenation, socially, economically and industrially, that Putin todate–and Hitler did it with the applause of the NYT, many Europeans and Americans (who sounded just like you do now about rejuvenated Putin Russia). Do not hurl loaded terms at me when THAT self-proclaimming KGB admirer of the Soviet Union becomes Tzar Putin I of Russia. (Watch him, man, walk through the Kremlin. Not even Stalin acted with such aristocratic majesty.) Putin, like the Czar has the blessing of the Orthodox Church. If you wish to ascribe to Putin a certain illusion of grandeur, a narcistic self-divinization (boy, watch muscle man at Judo–I do glance at the mediocre talent with critical eyes having a Black Belt in the sport)a la the Czar, fine. If you wish to shift the analogy from Hitler (in his peaceful pre-war days–and that was my moment of comparison) to the Czar, o.k., that was still a controlled “aristocratic” dictatorship which suppressed dissenters just as Putin is doing so now. And that surpression contributed to revoluation. (I note that, internally, Russian development and modernization, free of external investments, was more rapid under the Czar than under Putin.) Your use of “paranoia” frees you from looking through a non-enthusiastic pair of glass at the Russian world as it is today. You might then ask about my “glasses”. I have some.
I love the place. I visit it frequently. I will soon be there for 1 to 4 months. I live with the “common” people, not the “rich” and not so rich party goers whose sense of worth is measured by buying more expensive things that others and, at the same time do not dain to see empoverishment around them. Nothing is more pitiful on the streets of St. P. then viewing the retired Soviet bureaucracy waving their old flags on a retirement budget of €250/month (and €1,000/month just gets you by above real poverty). That is also Putin progress. It saddens my heart. I telphoned 2 hours ago with a party in a small village in Russia way away from the Puting crowd. Misery, man, misery! If you are proud of that, you are miserable. I will return to my feelings for Russia. I do not exclude living there, maybe even in a monastery. I have seen the damage to the Russian sense or religiosity by Communism only to experience its replacement by self-satisfied consummerism of the ruling party and its adjuncts. And that sickens me.
Let me make it clear as to what I said. I visit Russia every year. I see a contrast between wealth and poverty, a contrast that includes augmenting wealth, both quantiatively and qualitatively (though I enjoyed Russia of 1995 to crowd of today). But the contrast remains and glaringly so. The point I am making can be illustrated by my professorial friend. In the 1990′s she could go now and then to the center of St. P. and buy some cookies and coffee in a quaint café. Now she cannot do that if I am not there to pay for it. She is continually enraged at Putin and at his rich associates–enraged to the point that I fear a psychological explosion. She has friends that are living well and some not. What is missing is freedom to criticize on streets, to hear ongoing criticism of the gov. in tv or or read it in most newspapers, the ability to organize and protest. The ability to get rid of the “bum” up there (as I hope happens to the putinish president of American soon). If protests are quelshed, you have a sure sign of tyranny. Or?
I do have hope for Russia. I do not want the luxuration of a ruling class whose leader surpresses with force all dissent! Rich Nazi Germany at peace (and Nazi Germany was the most advance social state of the time, much more than FDR) was no path to progress. A Czaristic KGM man at the healm of Russia is not the correct direction and will retrograde the entrance of a positive contribution of Russia into the world. (KGB = Gestapo, or?) Your support of him does not advance the “true” interest of a people long suffering, rather places them again into the hands of a KGM Czar who runs a “directed democracy” (sic). You and those apologists like you are the reactionary problem harming Russia of today.
I am not a fan of the USSR. And I couldn’t care less about Putin’s comments concerning it.
I suggest you visit Detroit before you continue your lecture on “wealth and poverty”, “Saint Petersburg”, etc.
After your last, you have convinced me that your Hitler/Putin comparison is excessive to the point of paranoia. You might have missed the fact that Putin was on a state visit to Israel recently. A very cordial visit indeed, I might add. You may want to inform yourself on the highlights and details of it.
The majority of Russians voted for Putin and stability. It was their choice.
The majority of Germans voted for Hitler. It was their choice. So what? The majority of Americans voted for Obama. It was their choice. So what? The “what” is the following: With the coming election it is possible that the majority of Americans vote against Obama. If so, he is gone. USA is a functioning democracy. And where is the future vote in Russia that could throw the “bum” out? If there is none, then a manipulated and falsified vote for Putin (= 67%), even if it were honest, is no grounds to plea for Putin Russia as you did. If your comment is correct, than a plea for Hitler’s Germany would have logically been in order from you. If you can “care less” about Putin’s affirmation of a system on the par of evil of Nazi Germany, the integrity of your character comes to the fore–and freightens me. You refuse to be concerned about a possibly destructive force (ask the Georgians).
Well, what is the importance of Putin’s comments? You attacked the article which warns the reader of dangers in Russian foregin policy (a Russia with atomic weapons, airforce, huge army and large navy and supporting bloody regimes in the Middle East is a significant concern). You claimed that the author is “making a moutain out of a mole hill”, no? Well, igets, I responded to your mole-hill thesis by showing that Putin’s character is dangerously flawed in its affirmation of an EVIL system, one with enormous potential for causing danger and destruction in the world. On a purely logical level, your sudden “can’t care less” is out of place, viz., you changed the subject and lost the argumentative interchange. I do not understand why you care at all about the article since you do not care anything about the real nature of the object of the article. In other words, it is not a matter of a “mole hill” and you do not care. You are seriously confused. Perhaps a course on logic at the uni. (assuming you are attending) might help your thought processes.
Aside:I can find quotes from people in the 1930s who “did not care less” about remarks on Hitler’s dangerous character. That was a stupid “caring less” and, as it turned out, morally lax. I do not like doing so, but the force of your shifting positions inclines me to hold you for morally lax.
You refer to Detroit for terrible poverty. I refer you to certain parts of Mexico (not to mention the back hills around Brasilia) that I have seen for ever more and more profound and hopeless poverty. What is the point of this contest for “Mirror, mirror on the wall, who has the most poverty of them all?” Within the context of the discussion of the article and your first objections, poverty in Detroit has nothing to do with my contrastive duality of excessive richness and broad based impoverishment IN RUSSIA. Russia and Putin and the status of this complex is the subject matter of the argument. What do you do? You triumph over me by introducing an American “poverty”, totally foreign to the subject matter as my introduction of Mexican “poverty”. You did not respond to my thesis, you insulted it away. Ignorance loses. Or do you have something more to say that is germane to the article, your critique and my response? If not, maintain silence, it speaks volumes. Logical amateurs simply strain me.
Thanks for your comments. I see Russia’s economy crashing in a few years. The world will be awash in natural gas that can replace petroleum. Russia is awash in it and oil, but will find the low prices disastrous. Europe will turn to more friendly and lower priced sources including their own new found natural gas.
I agree that Putin is no saint.
But Obama and his Bilderberg controllers, are much worse with their Sharia Law put into Afghanistan/Iraq/Egypt/Libya/Tunisia/Yemen, their false flag killing of 9/11 victims, their false flag killing of almost 3,000 innocent civilians with their “Fast and Furious”, their false flag killing of innocent children in Oklahoma City, their false flag killing movie patrons in Colorado, their killing of over 1 million innocent civilians in Afghanistan/Iraq/Africa, their killing of over 10,000 American Soldiers in Iraq/Afghanistan/Africa on the 9/11 false flag and a taxi driver’s report of nuclear weapons in Iraq, their killing of innocent American Citizens with Drones in the middle east, their killing of innocent civilians in Iran and Syria by funding Al Qaeda/Muslim Brotherhood/Mujahedeen e-Khalq terrorists.
ENOUGH IS ENOUGH – No, looking a Putin is a joke when you compare his crimes to those of the Bilderbergs who have infiltrated our republic.
I live in a bad neighborhood,we have the occasional unreported Flash mob,which you duck like a hail storm. Our cops are Great! One of my sons wants to be one. Ive learned how to deal with my neighbors,live poor but save my money. There is no substitute for being strong and using your head. Being President is not a one man job il give him that,but he should at least be on our side!
How many times – how many motherf_cking times – are you going to deploy the “Putin’s soul” quote, and of that number, are you Ever going to observe that this is just the kind of diplomatic thing the US President has to say, or do you really believe you are a genius for inferring that Putin’s KGB experience may not just be “in the past?”. It’s amazing how much stupidity and sloppiness dominates our public writers and their themes.
I have saved yesterdays P.J. being one of my richest experiences on the web!… I dont know if you allow cross pollination here but the web site TravBuddy.com will give you 1,435 opinions from travels in Russia!
I remember Bush saying that. It cost him a most of what little respect I had for him (mainly because I don’t respect politicians out of hand, unless they prove they are worth something). What a complete buffoon.
Anyway, Obama isn’t too harsh on Putin because he wishes he could do the same here. He already rules like a Czar, using executive orders and his Executive Office shadow government to get around Congress and the courts. So far the Republicans even haven’t made much fuss about that nor do we know the true extent of what Obama has done with his shadows. Arresting Limbaugh and Beck and others? He would love to be able to do that.
Why should Obama create problems to his comrade Putin ? They come from the same root, totalitarianism. They want the same thing. Absolute power.
Consider this- America is, as we speak, militarily, attempting to gradually encircle Russia and China with missiles and so-called “lily-pad” military bases. I am sure this is not lost on them.I would imagine they are quite aware of them and “our” plans. America is trying to set itself up as the worlds dictator using NATO as it’s muscle. Not that long ago, it was the British Empire. Now we are buddy buddy with them. Any leader who is under that sort of pressure with an externally supported resistance movement is going to end up being repressive. Have a look at our OWN dept of homeland security and THEIR depredations. We COULD be nearing a dictatorship ourselves! Wake up and smell the coffee…..he hour is late.
Another bullseye Dr Zigfield. The “reset button” was a fatuous piece of hollywood mawkishness dreamed up by an infantilized state department. The hard, cynical men of the Kremlin must have been bemused and delighted by the implications of it. And that’s to say nothing of the pathetic arrogance and conceit behind it: George Bush, that risible simpleton, froze the relationship and now we’re restarting it.
Putin is a liar and a grub, with the moral compass of a devoted KGB man (he makes no secret of the fact that his hero is Yuri Andropov, God help us). His friends are grubs too, like Baby Assad and Ahmadinejad. Obama is unwilling to execute even the gentlest of u-turns (as regards Ahmadinejad, incidentally, as well as Putin). And in the meantime, Putin gos his merry, cynical way
‘the majority of russians voted putin back in’?
in today’s world of hanging chads, absentee voter fraud, trunks full of last minute missing ballots, remote controlled voting machines and untold others, you will never get me to believe that comment. even under his heavy hand there were many protestors of that last ‘election’. fixing elections is what these folks do really well. many of those poor people are probably already ‘missing’. he was what was really bad about the k.g.b. back when, and he has even more power now.
its not hard to see (body language) pootin can’t stomach much of the kenyan (can relate); however, they are comrades, under the skin, so to speak. they have reached some kind of secret agreement for after the next election, as was told. it wouldn’t surprise me one little bit if it didn’t concern our fate, post-election.
yes virginia, we do have commies in the white house, but they are deathly afraid of tea, of all things.