Soulmates?
We are facing a regime in power that violates our laws in its treatment of opponents, and that condones use of torture. This administration violates the laws because it sees them as hindering its ability to conduct its operations, which include unprovoked war and ferreting out 'the terrorists' it has denominated its enemies. I see parallels in the increasingly blatant persecution of its opponents by w's friend Putin, with whom he recently conducted a cozy little chat which ignored the Russian state's authoritarian, and murderous, conduct of its affairs.
I admit to being bothered that enemies of the state in Russia are dying in really shadey killings. The latest, a poisoned Russian spy Litvinenko who was investigating evidence in the recent murder inside Russia of journalist Anna Politkovskaya. This follows not too many years after the poisoning of anti-Russian dissident and later successful candidate for president of the Ukraine Viktor Yushchenko.
What is our country's reaction? Has anyone heard or seen one? During the recent trip to see five minutes of Vietnam our leader met with Putin, Russia's increasingly iron curtain style leader, en famille, in a friendly little chat while Air Force One refilled in his country. Needless to say, 'seeing his soul in his eyes' has characterized our country's erstwhile president as sympatico with and showing total approval for the KGB character who has kept free elections from being held in the provinces, and presides over an increasingly repressive government.
"The general political climate among the Russian elites has become immensely depressing in recent times," according to the prominent Moscow journalist Mikhail Rostovskii. He insists that the authorities, who have "only instincts but no strategies," are involved in ludicrous endeavors, such as the cancellation of the holiday celebrating the October (Bolshevik) Revolution, meaningless or dangerous undertakings, such as the decision to abandon the election of provincial governors, or even stupid actions, such as the destruction of Yukos.7 The authors of a report produced by Stanislav Belkovsky's Council on National Strategy accuses the state of "lacking a strategy and goals." The report focuses on the Kremlin's chaotic economic policy.8 Even Expert, a probusiness weekly, which is usually friendly toward the Kremlin, declared on the eve of the new year in an editorial with the sarcastic title, "We Do Not Rebel against the Authorities," that the current persecution of one company after another (for instance, the mobile telephone firm Vympelkom and the bank Russian Standards) "puts in doubt the survival of the country."9
These policies remind me awfully of the very ones this country's leadership condemned rather than condoned during the Cold War, when the U.S. still strictly supported the Geneva conventions and a Rule of Law. A president breaking laws and proclaiming that he had a philosophy such as the unitary executive theory which allowed him to violate the Constitution he had sworn to uphold would not have been tolerated.
It would appear that we have slipped from this country's former moral leadership and I see chillingly significant that this president claims a firm companionship with a leader whose lawlessness is increasingly apparent.
'Pragmatic' behavior is the description increasingly applied to violation of basic standards of universally approved decency. Making war on an unoffending country, which prevents us from fully prosecuting the war on al Quaeda, seems to be the ultimate pragmatic act. It is also the most counterproductive one undertaken by any American government in my lifetime.
In Afghanistan, where the war began , NATO and U.S. forces are struggling to cope with a resurgent Taliban whose guerrillas have killed some two dozen western troops, including two U.S. soldiers in a suicide bombing in Kabul Friday, since Sep. 1.
NATO's U.S. commander, Gen. James L. Jones, admitted Thursday that the alliance was going through a "difficult period" and needs as many as 2,500 more troops, as well as additional aircraft, to bolster ongoing operations in southern Afghanistan, significant parts of which have reportedly fallen under the effective -- if not yet permanent -- control of the Taliban.
The government of neighbouring Pakistan, meanwhile, has agreed to withdraw its troops from northern Waziristan, effectively returning full control of the region -- as it did in southern Waziristan last year -- to tribal militias dominated by close allies of the Taliban.
As you will note, I point to the Cretin in Chief's identification with the ruthless leadership of Putin as symptomatic of his disregard for our own laws. I admit I am not a student of psychology or pathology. However, I do think that our C-i-C is not fit to lead a free country, and has proved it.
This congress is going to need to deal with the leadership realistically, and it seems that one role forced on our elected congressional representatives will be to prevent the Constitution, and the rule of law, from being overthrown by the practices of this administration.
I hope you will give them your complete support. This country has reached a new low and hopefully can only go upward. It is in peril of going downwards.
I admit to being bothered that enemies of the state in Russia are dying in really shadey killings. The latest, a poisoned Russian spy Litvinenko who was investigating evidence in the recent murder inside Russia of journalist Anna Politkovskaya. This follows not too many years after the poisoning of anti-Russian dissident and later successful candidate for president of the Ukraine Viktor Yushchenko.
What is our country's reaction? Has anyone heard or seen one? During the recent trip to see five minutes of Vietnam our leader met with Putin, Russia's increasingly iron curtain style leader, en famille, in a friendly little chat while Air Force One refilled in his country. Needless to say, 'seeing his soul in his eyes' has characterized our country's erstwhile president as sympatico with and showing total approval for the KGB character who has kept free elections from being held in the provinces, and presides over an increasingly repressive government.
"The general political climate among the Russian elites has become immensely depressing in recent times," according to the prominent Moscow journalist Mikhail Rostovskii. He insists that the authorities, who have "only instincts but no strategies," are involved in ludicrous endeavors, such as the cancellation of the holiday celebrating the October (Bolshevik) Revolution, meaningless or dangerous undertakings, such as the decision to abandon the election of provincial governors, or even stupid actions, such as the destruction of Yukos.7 The authors of a report produced by Stanislav Belkovsky's Council on National Strategy accuses the state of "lacking a strategy and goals." The report focuses on the Kremlin's chaotic economic policy.8 Even Expert, a probusiness weekly, which is usually friendly toward the Kremlin, declared on the eve of the new year in an editorial with the sarcastic title, "We Do Not Rebel against the Authorities," that the current persecution of one company after another (for instance, the mobile telephone firm Vympelkom and the bank Russian Standards) "puts in doubt the survival of the country."9
These policies remind me awfully of the very ones this country's leadership condemned rather than condoned during the Cold War, when the U.S. still strictly supported the Geneva conventions and a Rule of Law. A president breaking laws and proclaiming that he had a philosophy such as the unitary executive theory which allowed him to violate the Constitution he had sworn to uphold would not have been tolerated.
It would appear that we have slipped from this country's former moral leadership and I see chillingly significant that this president claims a firm companionship with a leader whose lawlessness is increasingly apparent.
'Pragmatic' behavior is the description increasingly applied to violation of basic standards of universally approved decency. Making war on an unoffending country, which prevents us from fully prosecuting the war on al Quaeda, seems to be the ultimate pragmatic act. It is also the most counterproductive one undertaken by any American government in my lifetime.
In Afghanistan, where the war began , NATO and U.S. forces are struggling to cope with a resurgent Taliban whose guerrillas have killed some two dozen western troops, including two U.S. soldiers in a suicide bombing in Kabul Friday, since Sep. 1.
NATO's U.S. commander, Gen. James L. Jones, admitted Thursday that the alliance was going through a "difficult period" and needs as many as 2,500 more troops, as well as additional aircraft, to bolster ongoing operations in southern Afghanistan, significant parts of which have reportedly fallen under the effective -- if not yet permanent -- control of the Taliban.
The government of neighbouring Pakistan, meanwhile, has agreed to withdraw its troops from northern Waziristan, effectively returning full control of the region -- as it did in southern Waziristan last year -- to tribal militias dominated by close allies of the Taliban.
As you will note, I point to the Cretin in Chief's identification with the ruthless leadership of Putin as symptomatic of his disregard for our own laws. I admit I am not a student of psychology or pathology. However, I do think that our C-i-C is not fit to lead a free country, and has proved it.
This congress is going to need to deal with the leadership realistically, and it seems that one role forced on our elected congressional representatives will be to prevent the Constitution, and the rule of law, from being overthrown by the practices of this administration.
I hope you will give them your complete support. This country has reached a new low and hopefully can only go upward. It is in peril of going downwards.
Labels: Afghanistan, Russia
posted by Ruth at 3:52 AM
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