Prime Minister Putin!

[sppunk]

Originally Posted by Kahlo

I have many friends from Russia, and my best friend is currently in Moscow working..aside from that I don't need to give you credentials as to why I'm entitled to a view...

Firstly, I would never endorse his government in any form, and agreed with you until you started making ludicrous assumptions about the threat of him using nuclear weapons. Maybe we should worry about the US, who have nuclear submarines sitting off the russian coast, or who are building a defence shield in the balkans

I misinterpreted your post - sorry for my rude reaction to you.

The U.S. positioning nuclear subs off Russian coasts doesn't factor into my thought we'll never actual use a nuclear warhead in today's global environment. If a world war broke out we might, but I don't see any world war scenarios playing out (in a true war sense, I mean here). Russia's problem - and I should have said this earlier - is that the government isn't in control of its own weapons. They have farmed them / sold them to off-sectioned government "squads" that control regions. Some are Islamic extremists, most are Russian extremists who want the country to regain its power.

If I remember correctly, the Balkans project is land controlled by the United Nations and granted to the United States for security purposes. Regardless, the United States government and military has no reason to be there. It'll just lead to bad, bad things.

[Chuck=Zero]

Originally Posted by Cup O Mercury

We are not fighting in the middle east to profit from oil. That is a myth. We are there in response of Islamic Jihad.

I wasn't tryin' to imply the crackpot conspiracy theory that the reason the Administration decided to go to war in Iraq was simply to benefit a couple of Bush's oil corporation buddies or Cheyney's pals at KBR. Just like Alan Greenspan's statement in his book, everyone misinterprets comments that try to point out how important the resource of oil is to everything we do in the Middle East. Countries like Saddam's Iraq then and Ahmadinejad's Iran today pose a direct threat to much of the world's oil supply, for example, Greenspan noted how devastated the US economy could've been if Hussein decided to take control of the Strait of Hormuz and block all oil exports. This is why even France's president brought up the possibility of future conflict with Iran. Oil from the Mideast region is so crucial to not just the American, but the world economy, that Iran wouldn't have to do much militarily to cripple the world's economy.

And getting back to the point of countries with nuclear weapons, I think the US is most concerned with nuclear-armed Pakistan right now, and the possibility of Musharraf's military regime being overthrown by a fundamentalist revolt.

[Trotskilicious]

Originally Posted by Kahlo

Glasgow is the same

and:
Houston
Los Angeles
Detroit
Dallas
New York City
Philadelphia
Pittsburgh
Gary
Chicago

god the list goes on, what the fuck is wrong with you mayday

[Trotskilicious]

Originally Posted by sppunk

They have farmed them / sold them to off-sectioned government "squads" that control regions. Some are Islamic extremists, most are Russian extremists who want the country to regain its power.

I was not aware of this. I really would like to think that people wouldn't use a nuclear weapon for the hell of it though but you know...when you got nothing to lose...

[Ever]

*President Putin

He answers to no king

[Ever]

So howcome no one has said anything about how they're not letting the united states make their missile defenses in europe. Or well threatening them if they do or something.

[The Melty Man]

Putin makes Gorbachev look like a moderate. Bring back Gorbachev!

[Trotskilicious]

gorby was a moderate

are you a retard that has your nurse post for you?

[Starla]

Personally I'm not worried. John Titor will come back for me in his time machine before all hell breaks loose.

[M.Night]

Putin is in the closet. He should admit that his gay!
We all see it

[Chuck=Zero]

Anyone see how Vlad "stoodup" Condie Rice today? Well, he eventually showed up, 45 minutes late.

[Kanan Road]

apparently the iranians were plotting to assasinate him on his visit to tehran.

how about them iranians now VLAD?

[Delicieuxz]

I just want to point out that sppunk appears to not know jack shit concerning Russian issues, and also to give a little insight into those issues which sppunk talks so unknowlingly about.

Curiously, that sppunk's lived in Russia is used as clout to suggest we should take his word as truth, yet those I know who've lived in Russia, currently live in Russia, and want to move back to Russia because of the changes Putin has brought, all disagree with the ignorant fear-mongering he's just presented. Keep in mind, rather, that Putin's approval rating has hit 80% in independant public opinion polls, and never dipped below 65%, making him the highest approved leader in the world.

Yes, Russia has more nukes than the US, and they have more advanced and powerful ones too, not to forget that their circa 100 nuclear silos are evenly spread across Russia, whereas US' are all condensed in one area of the country, making them easy to take out all at once. Why do you think the US wants to build missile defences in Europe? Iran is certainly not building a nuke, and even if they did it wouldn't pose any threat. Russia knows this, which is exactly why they are very opposed to this missile shield.
But Russia is less of a threat than the US, and it is Russia who have been pressing the US to keep up with disamament, while the US has tried to make deals with Russia to abandon their disarmament agreements.

Calling Putin a murderer is no doubt referring to Anna Politkovskaya, however, thinking Putin has anything to do with this shows that sppunk has a very superficial tabloid-level understanding of these issues.
The only person to have made the accusation of Putin being responsible was Alexander Litvinenko, and his story was subsequently discredited by the very person who Litvinenko claims to have heard that this information came from (make note that Litvinenko never was the direct recipient of this supposed information). British investigations also found no merit to Litvinenko's story, and no semi-credible source has suggested that Putin is responsible for Politkovskaya's murder, including her family.
Anna Politkovskaya was murdered on Putin's birthday, igniting suspicions among select conspiracy theorists that Putin was honoring his birthday with the murder of a critic. But in the real world, without the Doctor Evils, the suggestion of Putin murdering an inconsequential critic on his birthday is akin to suggesting he also dines on the hearts of babies for kicks.
Putin happened to be critical of the same human rights abuses in Chechnya that Politkovskaya was, and stated that while there were abuses happening by some military personnel, these were not being sanctioned from the top.
In reality, an appropriate suspect would be someone from Ramzan Kadyrov, who was the receiver of Politkovskaya's Chechnya criticism, or the much much more plausible suspect of Boris Berezovsky, who has repeatedly advocated a violent overthrow of Putin's government, is wanted in several countries for criminal acts, is already suspected of being behind murders, and whose self stated mission is to "destroy the positive image of Putin."

It was also said Putin is a dictator. While being President obviously comes with certain power, Putin has refused to take a 3rd consecutive term as President, and while humouring the thought of returning to being Prime Minister, he has stated there will be no consolidation of Presidential power to the Prime-Minister either now, or later.
This dictator talk is just more poor quality Western news sensationalizing, coming from perhaps the most dumbed down country in the world, and the one which, because of its own stupidity, is the real menace that poses a constant threat to world peace.
The negative connotation of a dictator also isn't just someone who has power, which isn't negative on its own, but someone who does wrong with their power, denies the people's wishes in favour of their own. This isn't the case in Russia, where 75% of the population is very happy with Putin's work. However, these numbers are more than opposite in the US.

The US is critical of Putin because they wanted another Boris Yeltsin to be the lap dog of the US, who could then continue to exploit Russia. The US is still trying to exploit Russia by blocking them from the World Trade Organization, and make up all sorts of bogus accusations to slander them, being the world's biggest hypocrites in the proccess.

I wonder how many U.S. citizens realize 1) Russia has more nuclear weapons than any other country in the world and 2) at least seven are directly aimed at U.S. cities ... and can easily reach them ... at this very moment?

Porbably more than those who don't realize that the US also has its weapons aimed at Russia, and ready to launch within minutes. Apparently tho, you are one of these people.

Originally Posted by sppunk

Moronic, you say? Tell me exactly how they are moronic ... and keep in mind I've lived in Russia, have a degree in Russian history and follow its politics almost as close as the United States'.

But yes Kahlo, please lecture me about Vladimir Putin and his wonderful Russian government he is building single-handedly.

Putin has done a fantastic job for his country - hence the general populace want him to stay in power, and your list of supposed credentials amounts to nothing. I also doubt that you've spent any significant portion of your adult life (if you are an adult) living in Russia, much less experienced the difference of Putin's presidency.


It's amazing how, with ignorance, some people will regurgitate superficial hype, propaganda and fiction journalism as tho they were meaningfully digging deep into issues on which they had valid conclusions.

[TicalFSU]

Delicieuxz - good response, at least you know what you are talking about. People seem to be stuck in the mindset that Russia is still the same country it was after the fall of the USSR. I believe it is now either 8th or 9th as far as GDP is concerned and growing.

I may not agree with everything Putin does but at least he is trying to put the American empire in check; hence alot of the smearing in western mainstream "news" sources. I hope we heed his warnings, for the world's sake. A unipolar world is a bad thing.

[Corganist]

Originally Posted by Delicieuxz

The only person to have made the accusation of Putin being responsible was Alexander Litvinenko, and his story was subsequently discredited by the very person who Litvinenko claims to have heard that this information came from (make note that Litvinenko never was the direct recipient of this supposed information). British investigations also found no merit to Litvinenko's story, and no semi-credible source has suggested that Putin is responsible for Politkovskaya's murder, including her family.

Yeah, because everyone would be just super happy to speak out against Putin and his government after what happened to Litvinenko and Politkovskaya, right? No chance at all that people might be a little intimidated. Nope, the fact that people are silent surely means things are on the up and up!

[sppunk]

Delicieuxz, thanks for your post.

But I don't think anyone should put stock in public opinion polls conducted by state-sponsored media. Just like I don't think anyone should put stock in public opinion polls conducted by agenda-setting corporate news agencies (I refer to U.S. polls of the same vein).

I disagree with your assertion of Putin rightfully allowing power to lapse when his term is complete and he settles into his newly created public office title. I hope I am proven wrong, but I am skeptical to say the least.

I am anti-missle shield, it seems as though you believe I am in favor of that nonsense. America's stance is absurd, demanding other nations to rid itself of nuclear weapons but developing our own. It's a double-standard. However, my fear of the Russian nuclear bombs does not lie within the government-controlled sector, but any of these that might have fallen into the hands of extremists during any number of the regional conflicts. I tried to find an old eye-witness report during an Azerbaijan-Armenian uprising that had groups moving *supposed* nuclear warheads through Armenian countryside. Is this true? I have no idea, but I believe it's very possible given the fractured regional structure that existed for so long (and still haunts a few of the former Soviet-bloc nations).

Yeltsin was a joke, we can agree upon that. Many of the infrastructure failures Russian cities have felt can be tied directly to his regime.

You seem to believe Putin has built a very strong nation and has improved communication, infrastructure and standard-of-living for most all Russians. I would love you to point me to evidence of those claims, especially the standard-of-living issue.

[Thaniel Buckner]

Originally Posted by sppunk

*coin cliche here* American politics has changed overwhelmingly in that time!

Whereas Soviet government has regressed to the early 60s (when they didn't have tactical methods for delivering warheads to the U.S.).

i'd say we've gone back to the fifties

[duovamp]

It's really hard to take sppunk's arguments seriously in this thread.

[Delicieuxz]

sppunk, sorry for being a bit of a dick, I've got to work on that.

The polls were conducted by the Levada Center, which is widely credited as being a reliable source, but disregarding public polls, we can still look at the results of his re-election campaign, which earned him 71% of votes.

I do believe Putin honors his word, can't think of evidence to the contrary off the top of my head, and personally have no doubts regarding his claim to not shift power from the President to Prime Minister if he should retake that position. Simultaneously, tho, I kind of almost wish he would, but realize that such a move would set a bad standard of practice for other Presidents and politicians to follow.

Concerning the missile shield, I just moved into that because I thought it related to the seeming nuclear superiority of Russia. I didn't hold thoughts on where your opinion might lie.
I don't know about nukes specifically in Armenia, but I would imagine that any nukes that were left floating around old Soviet States would have by now been retrieved by Russia. Of course I don't know that all nukes have gone back to them, but I know effort was made to bring them back, and that in general they were given back to Russia. Here's a semi-relevant article noting that Russia is against nukes being stationed outside their borders.

Putin has deffinitely made Russia stronger and prosperous. Nationalizing much of the oil industry has been a main contributer to this. Coincidentally, an article just popped up on msnbc which condenses points regarding how this act has benefitted Russia. It lists this as the results:

Before nationalization, Russia had $17 billion of international dept. Now, Russia's gold and currency reserves are around $425 billion.
The federal budget has increased ten times over.
There has been the creation of the Stabilization Fund, which is $150 billion large, and is meant to deal with any economic crisis they may have in the future.
Average income has doubled, people below the poverty line has been cut in half.
Consumerism has increased dramatically, noting especially automobile purchases and imports.


Here is a relevant excerpt from this article which says:

In the 1990s, despite wide-spread poverty, the actual word “poverty,” was avoided in official documents. As noted in the recent World Bank report, they used other phrases such as “families that have little.” It was Vladimir Putin who started to speak about poverty directly. Reducing poverty (as a part of reducing social inequality) began to appear in program documents, such as “Gref’s program,” as one of the priorities of social policy. The slogan of doubling GDP entered into the folklore of the Putin era, but few remember that with it the government also planned to reduce poverty to half its size.

During the eight years that Putin has been in office the income of Russians has grown quickly; the country’s history has hardly seen another period when the prosperity of the population improved at such a fast rate. According to the Russian Monitor of the Economic Situation and Public Health (RMEZ) which has monitored the economic status and health of the population regularly since 1992, the average income of the Russian family almost doubled between 2000 and 2006, from 6,087 rubles to 11, 425 rubles. Today the real income of the average Russian family is roughly 30% higher than in 1992. Specialists at the Independent Institute of Social Policy (IISP) estimate that the average income per person in Russia in 2005 reached the pre-reform levels of 1991. A part of the Russian population approached the threshold where their income covered not only for their immediate needs but also for investment and education, health care and retirement savings, and yet sociologists and market researchers are still looking for a “middle class” in Russia. Although the results of their searches are disputed, the Kremlin can boldly state that as far as the population’s standard of living is concerned, he has succeeded in wiping out the consequences of the “Yeltsin chaos” of the 1990s. Of course, specialists at the IISP note that these are figures for the general income: the average pension and salary (accounting for inflation) has not yet reached pre-reform levels. In other words the income level of the population was restored because of other sources – informal earnings, illegal income etc. But even here the progress in evident. The percentage of legal earnings as part of the Russian’s total income is growing: in 2000 legal earning made up 38.2% of a Russian’s income, where as today it makes up 48%, according to RMES

Here is an article called Living Standards of Russians Improved, however it's in Russian. Since you've lived in Russia maybe you can read it.

[Gish08]

Putin is shady.

The cold war's still cold, bro.