Reports from South Ossetia are still conflicting and clearly one or both sides is being more than economical with the truth as to what is going on, as well as how it started.
I'm going to use this particular post to discuss Russia. A later one will cover Georgia and I might do a third on South Ossetia.
The Bolshevik popular coup (it's not a revolution) of November 1917 was the worst thing to happen to Russia in its history. It has brought Russia little but misery. What benefits the Communist regime brought to the USSR could have occured without and are outweighed by the millions of death.
I don't hate Russia. I don't hate Russians. In fact, I have Russian friends and I have a keen interest in the country. Korobeiniki (the theme tune to Tetris) is one of my favourite tunes. On AJJE Games, one of my characters is of Russian descent and I don't play her as a caricature.
I detest their government, that's all. The Prime Minister of the world's second most powerful country is- get this-a former KGB agent. Yes, I know he wasn't in it for long and just did a brief stint in East Germany before resigning. However, joining the KGB takes either gross stupidity or a gross lack of morality. The organisation is rightly notorious and its predecessors are even worse.
Medvedev complains about the "missile shield", which isn't even aimed at him (look at a globe and you'll see). Yet his country is placing multiple warheads on the Topol-M missiles, constructing more Tu-160 "Blackjack" intercontinental bombers and constructing new SSBNs to replace the Kal'mar/"Delta III" class submarines. Isn't that a tad hypocritical?
(US hypocrisy on other issues is not for this post, BTW)
Seriously, is there a Havel or Walesa in Russia? Because it sorely needs one. It deserves much better than what it has at the moment.
1 comment:
To answer your question, no. Russia got their stomach full (or empty, I should say) of Western-style "democracy" during the Yeltsin years. Now they want an authoritarian Great Man to lead them. As with Turkey after the fall of the Ottoman Empire, they want an Attaturk to lead them out of national disaster. Thus far they see no reason to go back on their choice. We shall have to see whether, as with Attaturk, Putin decides to bring real democracy to his nation once his stay as the Great Man is done. I suspect that's the only way it'll happen.
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