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October 09, 2008

Medvedev's Questionable Analysis of World Woes

 

 

Again, the Putin puppet has spoken.

 

Dmitri Medvedev declares that it is the United States, through daring to be wealthy, that has undermined global security rather than Russia’s provocative actions of selling arms (the garden variety as well as in some cases the more dangerous nuclear variety) and lending support and manpower behind Hezbollah, Syria, Iran, North Korea, and even Saddam’s Iraq. Aside from those examples, he means. Apart from supporting terrorists and rogue states, Russia has been the world’s little darling since Vladimir Putin came to power in 2000. So it seems to make all but perfect sense that Dmitri would be completely credible in his call “to build a truly democratic world order.” And, I’m sure if the 300 plus murdered journalists and untold numbers of detained, dead or missing political dissenters in Russia could speak today, they would agree wholeheartedly, as well.

 

No, I’d rather say that the global trouble we face today where violence and repression intersect has more to do with what has gone on in the Kremlin than anything remotely happening inside that Beltway north of Virginia. It is a Revanchist Neo-Sovietist Russia that seeks so badly its former fame – or infamy – that it is willing to commit the most heinous of brutality against its own people or others directly or through its proxies (Russia uses states and terrorist groups, its intelligence organizations use the inernational crime syndicate) to re-acquire that power and to hold on to it. It is willing to nationalize foreign assets and its own private businesses and put their owners into prison, invade small countries to seize its pipelines, cut off gas to Europe in the dead of winter (no matter the little old lady freezing to death), give dangerous, even catastrophic weapons systems to rogue states and terrorists, and even commit murder directly. In point of fact, the Russian government under Putin has become the terrorist, the undisputed master of wet-ops, blowing up apartment buildings to score a propaganda win against Chechen separatists to keep the empire a few more years.

 

Despite Mr. Medvedev’s attempts to paint himself and his government the victims in the lack of better U.S. cooperation, it was through his own government from the earliest days of Putin’s presidency that Russia literally made itself radioactive around the world. Medvedev contends that it was U.S. unilateralism dealing with Iraq which soured relations and cooperation; yet, Medvedev fails to recall the countless Security Council resolutions his government resisted both in their inception as well as their enforcement. Medvedev fails to acknowledge, too, that during this same time, parties within the UN organization, the governments of France, Germany, China, and Russia were all engaged in under-the-table dealings with Saddam Hussein’s regime, offering it items banned by sanctions – including weapons systems most likely to be used against a U.S.-led aerial assault – in exchange for cash and oil and undercutting any real chance of a peaceful resolution to the Iraq situation. Medvedev also fails to point out that among Russia’s other questionable dealings with Iran and North Korea, such as giving both countries materials essential for starting a nuclear program, as well as helping them harden their conventional forces against possible U.S. or Israeli strikes (in the case of Iran), Russia was directly involved with boots on the ground in Lebanon assisting Hezbollah terrorists during their war with Israel in 2006. No, I can’t possibly begin to imagine why the U.S. was less than willing to work with Russia more.  

 

Finally, for Mr. Medevdev to state it is because of American prosperity that the financial markets are in turmoil belies the cold, sad global economic reality, that a world where there were no such prosperous America would be far worse off. Developing countries would have far fewer buyers of the products they sell to lift themselves out of Third World status, and democratic states would have certainly parished long ago in any real sense, for lack of a powerful champion. For another thing, there would be fewer people interested in Russian Gas, as competition has helped keep open the oil markets and drive up prices, helping Russia do something it was unable to do for itself: become rich (or at least allow its ruling elites to become dazzlingly wealthy). Indeed, were Russia to follow a more American model of economic and political freedom it would be able to be a rival economic force in the world today; instead, it can only sit on the sideline and armchair quarterback every play the world makes, pointing fingers here or there for internal consumption.  

 

As Yukos and Gazprom have become mere political tools of Russia’s not-so-soft power in the near- (and not so near-) abroad, Russia has continued to diminish ever more into the hollow shell of a state that lacks any true fans inside or outside its borders. Russia can’t even do autocratic well: while China's Communist regime is destined to collapse after some historically short-term impressive economic gains through cannibalizing its own people in political labor camps and sweatshops across the country, Russia, the weak cannibal, merely devours its own and accomplishes nothing for itself in the process. As its population continues to diminish in numbers (one sure sign of the misery index) and expected to be outnumbered by Muslims largely from immigrants by around 2040, Russia will increasingly find it difficult to hold together its vast empire. As this process carries forward, the regime, rather than finding healthy, positive ways of dealing with this, will become ever more destructive to its own hopes of survival. Nevertheless, the Kremlin has managed to increase the misery of millions of others around the world by resisting multilateral efforts to defend human rights, promote prosperity, and create a lasting stable peace.

 

Mr. Medvedev’s rhetoric might work somewhat in his own country where there is no opposition press alive to tell the other side of the story, and it might find traction among those around the world who simply loathe the United States for the freedoms and prosperity it stands for, but for the rest of us – those who can find the truth and aren’t afraid of looking it square in the face, we only see a sad and decaying regime led by a very weak puppet of a very weak man named Vladimir Putin.

 

 

Posted by Martin at October 9, 2008 02:54 AM

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