Putin has lost it

[SaulChanukah]

http://www.debka.com/article.php?aid=1304

[Corlyss_D]

He probably never had it. It's an astute political move from the KGB's point of view: they want to lock up all the oil and gas Europe uses, making sure that Europe never does anything meaningfully hostile to Russian interests, not that that bunch of Kumbaya-singing twits would. The link up with Iran is pretty much a done deal, and has been for months.

[Donald Isler]

I agree with Corlyss (for a change!) that Putin is making what he thinks is a smart move for him. Unfortunately it's a bad move for American and for Israel.

[jbuck919]

He probably never had it. It's an astute political move from the KGB's point of view: they want to lock up all the oil and gas Europe uses, making sure that Europe never does anything meaningfully hostile to Russian interests, not that that bunch of Kumbaya-singing twits would. The link up with Iran is pretty much a done deal, and has been for months.

I don't know about the Iran thing (I mean I literally don't know), but you're probably right. Nazism/fascism was a recoverable nightmare. Communism/Stalinism was a nightmare that no living person will see the end of.

[Donald Isler]

JBuck wrote:

"Nazism/fascism was a recoverable nightmare. Communism/Stalinism was a nightmare that no living person will see the end of."

If you mean that the Nazi/Fascist states are long gone whereas the Communist'Stalinst state still exists, you may be right. If you mean that people who lived through the Nazi era have all recovered from the traumas they went through I can point to several examples of people I know who went on with their lives after the war but in some ways never got over it, and probably never will.

[Philoctetes]

I agree with Corlyss (for a change!) that Putin is making what he thinks is a smart move for him. Unfortunately it's a bad move for American and for Israel.

Of course.
It's a brilliant move on his part.

Russia, India, China, and Iran.
A nice lot, I say.

[jbuck919]

JBuck wrote:

"Nazism/fascism was a recoverable nightmare. Communism/Stalinism was a nightmare that no living person will see the end of."

If you mean that the Nazi/Fascist states are long gone whereas the Communist'Stalinst state still exists, you may be right. If you mean that people who lived through the Nazi era have all recovered from the traumas they went through I can point to several examples I know of people who went on with their lives after the war but in some ways never got over it, and probably never will.

Donald, I know your family's history and Ralph's, and though it is not quite at the same level, I have posted many times that my mother's first husband died of post-traumatic stress disorder (i.e. he killed himself). But modern Germany bears no resemblance to what it was at that time, while Russia is in a semi-hopeless state of attempted recovery from what may be an even greater evil.

[Donald Isler]

JBick wrote:

"But modern Germany bears no resemblance to what it was at that time, while Russia is in a semi-hopeless state of attempted recovery from what may be an even greater evil."

I agree with this sentence except, perhaps, for the last few words. I think you'd have a very hard time convincing me that what happened in Russia was any more evil than what happened in Germany.

[Corlyss_D]

I don't know about the Iran thing (I mean I literally don't know)

Batchelor was reporting on it for a good year before he went off the air in Sep 06. Ditto the tag-team of Iran and North Korea, which he had been reporting on for as long as I had been listening, July 04-Sep 06.

[Corlyss_D]

I agree with Corlyss (for a change!) that Putin is making what he thinks is a smart move for him. Unfortunately it's a bad move for American and for Israel.

It's a bad move for Europe too. When the anti-missile shield, you know, that thing that has Putin frothing at the mouth, begins to be deployed he will pressure the Germans and the newly liberated eastern countries to refuse the deployment by threatening their oil and gas. I don't care about the Euorpeans per se because they deserve what they get - they aren't allies worthy of the name. But I hate to see newly-free survivors of Russian tyranny strangled into submission and dragged back into the fold.

[SaulChanukah]

He probably never had it. It's an astute political move from the KGB's point of view: they want to lock up all the oil and gas Europe uses, making sure that Europe never does anything meaningfully hostile to Russian interests, not that that bunch of Kumbaya-singing twits would. The link up with Iran is pretty much a done deal, and has been for months.

He is a Schmuck!

[Opus132]

He is a Schmuck!

I don't know, it seems like a clever move to me.

He may be a sly ex-KGB evil bastard but he knows how to move his pawns. Dangerous fellow.

[Corlyss_D]

ex-KGB

There is not such thing as ex-KGB, ex-FSB, ex-etc. That's the problem there now: the KGB/FSB is running the place. Every one of the men in charge of the government offices and the industries that Putin has gathered back unto the state is old KGB/FSB, men who knew what it was to be humiliated by Yeltsin and his democratization reforms.

[RebLem]

JBick wrote:

"But modern Germany bears no resemblance to what it was at that time, while Russia is in a semi-hopeless state of attempted recovery from what may be an even greater evil."

I agree with this sentence except, perhaps, for the last few words. I think you'd have a very hard time convincing me that what happened in Russia was any more evil than what happened in Germany.

I agree with Donald. One big and significant difference was that the Stalinists almost never killed children. They may have killed their parents and put the children in orphanages, but they seldom killed children, whereas the Nazis killed children on an industrial scale.

[Corlyss_D]

I agree with Donald. One big and significant difference was that the Stalinists almost never killed children. They may have killed their parents and put the children in orphanages, but they seldom killed children, whereas the Nazis killed children on an industrial scale.

You must not be thinking of the retributive famine in the Ukraine. It's kind a hard to think that 20 million dead wasn't indiscriminate.

[jbuck919]

JBick wrote:

"But modern Germany bears no resemblance to what it was at that time, while Russia is in a semi-hopeless state of attempted recovery from what may be an even greater evil."

I agree with this sentence except, perhaps, for the last few words. I think you'd have a very hard time convincing me that what happened in Russia was any more evil than what happened in Germany.

I agree with Donald. One big and significant difference was that the Stalinists almost never killed children. They may have killed their parents and put the children in orphanages, but they seldom killed children, whereas the Nazis killed children on an industrial scale.

This is not a question of agreeing or disagreeing. Exactly what is either of us supposed to be agreeing with? Stalin did not kill children? You have to be out of your mind. Not literally putting them in gas chambers does not constitute sparing them.

[living_stradivarius]

He probably never had it. It's an astute political move from the KGB's point of view: they want to lock up all the oil and gas Europe uses, making sure that Europe never does anything meaningfully hostile to Russian interests, not that that bunch of Kumbaya-singing twits would. The link up with Iran is pretty much a done deal, and has been for months.

Yep, this has pretty much been expected. But hey, at least they're not forming a natural gas cartel...

[Corlyss_D]

at least they're not forming a natural gas cartel...

No, that's the purview of the US Senate.