Friday, February 16, 2007

Vladimir Putin is a Nutter

And whilst on the subject of Russian conspiracies…

Thanks to anon for sending me a link to Vladimir Putin’s speech in Munich last week.

Whilst in no way claiming that Putin is a nice guy, he is one of that most interesting and rare breed of state leaders – one who appears to have pulled a ‘Napoleon’ on the people who put him into power.

As in, pretend to be a willing puppet, get handed the top job as a figurehead, then turn around, fuck your backers over and get on with pursuing your own agenda.


Vladimir Putin


The best part of his Munich speech is at the beginning. On reading it I’m beginning to doubt that Putin would pass the ‘
How Conspiratorial Are You?’ test as he seems awfully sure that Western governments are pursuing a New World Order based on military force. Here’s my favourite bit – it’s a long quote but it pleasures me immensely…


…the Cold War left us with live ammunition, figuratively speaking. I am referring to ideological stereotypes, double standards and other typical aspects of Cold War bloc thinking.

The unipolar world that had been proposed after the Cold War did not take place either.

The history of humanity certainly has gone through unipolar periods and seen aspirations to world supremacy. And what hasn’t happened in world history?

However, what is a unipolar world? However one might embellish this term, at the end of the day it refers to one type of situation, namely one centre of authority, one centre of force, one centre of decision-making.

It is world in which there is one master, one sovereign. And at the end of the day this is pernicious not only for all those within this system, but also for the sovereign itself because it destroys itself from within.

And this certainly has nothing in common with democracy. Because, as you know, democracy is the power of the majority in light of the interests and opinions of the minority.

Incidentally, Russia – we – are constantly being taught about democracy. But for some reason those who teach us do not want to learn themselves.

...

Along with this, what is happening in today’s world – and we just started to discuss this – is a tentative to introduce precisely this concept into international affairs, the concept of a unipolar world.

And with which results?

Unilateral and frequently illegitimate actions have not resolved any problems. Moreover, they have caused new human tragedies and created new centres of tension. Judge for yourselves: wars as well as local and regional conflicts have not diminished. … And no less people perish in these conflicts – even more are dying than before. Significantly more, significantly more!

Today we are witnessing an almost uncontained hyper use of force – military force – in international relations, force that is plunging the world into an abyss of permanent conflicts. As a result we do not have sufficient strength to find a comprehensive solution to any one of these conflicts. Finding a political settlement also becomes impossible.

We are seeing a greater and greater disdain for the basic principles of international law. And independent legal norms are, as a matter of fact, coming increasingly closer to one state’s legal system. One state and, of course, first and foremost the United States, has overstepped its national borders in every way. This is visible in the economic, political, cultural and educational policies it imposes on other nations. Well, who likes this? Who is happy about this?


And then there’s this bit where it seems to me, taken in the context of the entire speech, that Putin is hinting that his country and countries like his country are getting more prosperous and have absolutely no interest in going to war. It's the heavily-armed countries on the financial slide (i.e. us) that everyone has to worry about…


Madam Federal Chancellor already mentioned this. The combined GDP measured in purchasing power parity of countries such as India and China is already greater than that of the United States. And a similar calculation with the GDP of the BRIC countries – Brazil, Russia, India and China – surpasses the cumulative GDP of the EU. And according to experts this gap will only increase in the future.

There is no reason to doubt that the economic potential of the new centres of global economic growth will inevitably be converted into political influence and will strengthen multipolarity.


And Britain gets a special mention too…


However, today we are witnessing the opposite tendency, namely a situation in which countries that forbid the death penalty even for murderers and other, dangerous criminals are airily participating in military operations that are difficult to consider legitimate. And as a matter of fact, these conflicts are killing people – hundreds and thousands of civilians!


What a nutter

.

14 comments:

Tony said...

I was trying to find an English version of his speech. It was intersting to see that his speech was, well, a bit "misreported" in the German media and to see what he really said.

The thing is, I buy most of what he says about the west. Alas, the guided democracy in Russia and the war in Chechnya tell a different picture about Russia. Which makes his motives for this speech a bit dubious.

Stef said...

Without disagreeing with what you are saying, it is worth remembering that Putin was elected with 70% of the vote compared with, for example, Tony Blair's 35% or George Bush's ... er, whatever George Bush got

Personally speaking, having visited Russia a)before Putin took charge and b)after Putin took charge it is easy enough to understand why he is so popular with the majority of ordinary Russians

The noisiest opponents of Putin's regime here in the UK are the exiled oligarchs and their paid bitches. These are the people who looted their country blind and now receive a very warm welcome here in London. It is difficult to think of a group of people more deserving of contempt.

Chechnya, hmmm, that's a more complicated story...

Stef said...

... like I said I'm not claiming that Putin is a nice guy

He does however appear to be considerably more intelligent and literate than the equivalent 'Anglo' leaders

And the misreporting of what he had to say just sucks

Anonymous said...

Putin's speech seems to have rattled the Moronicans to such an extent that they've rolled out a propagandist.

The article falls short of its aims but stinks in its intentions, and particularly, its means of supporting said intentions.

Here's the link.

Naj said...

"The noisiest opponents of Putin's regime here in the UK are the exiled oligarchs and their paid bitches. These are the people who looted their country blind and now receive a very warm welcome here in London. It is difficult to think of a group of people more deserving of contempt."
This reminds me of the noisiest opponents of Iran's current government.
well, no that Ahmadinejad is a Bush-like creature, both in terms of electoral cheating process and er ... everything else :) but his speeches do sound like Putin, I must admit.

Wolfie said...

Interestingly Putin does believe in Zionist Lizards and has imprisoned a few, well those who didn't escape to Israel. The question is, does that mean that when he gets bad press that its proof that David is right - the lizards control the media? Foil customers world-wide would like to know.

Stef said...

@Wolfie

Indeed. Vlad also, in what I suspect was an not entirely unconnected move recently did this ...


MOSCOW, January 31 (RIA Novosti) - Russian President Vladimir Putin signed into law Wednesday a bill prohibiting people with dual citizenship from occupying the posts of prime minister, deputy prime ministers or Federal ministers.

The Russian parliament's upper and lower houses passed the bill January 19 and 24, respectively.

The law limits the appointment of Russian citizens to the posts of prime minister, deputy prime ministers and Federal ministers who have residency permits or any other documents permitting them to reside in a foreign country.

Stef said...

As I mentioned to someone else in a previous comment or two, my personal problem with the discussion surrounding these matters is how frequently they degenerate into racism and lunacy.

I have no doubt that some of that racism and lunacy is deliberately injected to fog the issue but, on the other side, there really are some lunatic racist ideas out there.

Anonymous said...

Further to the Jurist article (link in comment above, anon 3:43 pm), here's a link to another article that has just appeared on the Sanders Research site. "Eisenhower's Mistake: A Tale of an Astonishing Letter to the Former German Chancellor" By Andrej Grubacic - ZNet Commentaries
Feb/19/2007.

"American aim was to draw a geo-political line from the Baltic Sea to Anatolia and to control this area as the Romans had once controlled it and the pursuit of American NATO humanitarian attacks in Serbia as a means of setting future interventionist precedent."

Note that in the Jurist link, the propagandist uses this very argument ie setting future interventionist precedent.

So, it worked then.

Stef said...

@anon

Indeed it did

I just love the understated use of the word "oversight" in this line...

the purpose behind the Kosovo war was to enable the USA to correct an oversight of General Eisenhower's in the Second World War and to establish a US military presence in the Balkans

Stef said...

that Sanders site is an interesting one BTW thanks for putting me onto it

Anonymous said...

Hi Stef,

If you subscribed to the Sanders site you should have received an email alert about the Lockerbie disaster? I've been following it for a few years now: the note is worth reading. (It doesn't mention things such as, the legal Professor who designed and set up the trial said that it was a sham (sic, yeah ... sic!) but then that may be in the links and all legal Professors are conspiracy theorists anyway. Another point - have you noticed that the term 'conspiracy theorist' has replaced 'leftwinger' which replaced 'communist': all 'thought stoppers').

One other point, the article finishes with ... "As a result, this part of history will remain a boldfaced lie." No, no, no ... The state is being ignored, disintermediated; this (the internet, your blog, other blogs, my opinions, the differing opinions of others) is an example of such. The official record is no longer the arbiter of historical fact.

Anonymous said...

Link should be ... http://www.sandersresearch.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1128

Stef said...

@anon

I hadn't actually registered but I have now - though why Sanders sees any point in harvesting made-up names of registrants claiming to live in Albania is beyond me

Given that this blog is a personal one and prone to flit from the serious to the parochial and the trivial I doubt if it is going to worry anyone but your point is taken

And I have no doubt that measures are being taken to restore a comforting unipolar quality to the order of things.

Personally I doubt that it will ever be possible to put the genie back into the box but some will try