Personal Caveat - When I see someone affiliated with The Weekly Standard my hackles spike up. That publication used to be something a long long time ago...then Establishment stooges turned it into a mouthpiece of the DeepState!
But, I gave it a fair reading...just wanted to acknowledge my well-earned bias up front first.
As with most articles of this type there is good and bad...and everything in between.
To the meat...
He is the elected leader of Russia—a rugged, relatively poor, militarily powerful country that in recent years has been frequently humiliated, robbed, and misled. His job has been to protect his country’s prerogatives and its sovereignty in an international system that seeks to erode sovereignty in general and views Russia’s sovereignty in particular as a threat.(Sigh) I do not buy into the long-suffering woe-is-me y'all better pity me Russian low self-esteem and their vacillating confusion over being European or Asian or whatever. Humiliated, robbed and misled? By whom? More often than not by themselves. Who see's their sovereignty a threat? If I disagree with their invading and bombing of neighbors or support of batshyt-crazy regimes like Iran with nuclear tech and weaponry am I attacking their sovereignty? Should I soil my shorts and drop to my knees and beg for forgiveness and feel good about stroking their over-sensitive ego's and knock back Stoli and enjoy watching their pals nuke the planet?
Putin’s respect for the democratic process has been fitful at best. He has cracked down on peaceful demonstrations. Political opponents have been arrested and jailed throughout his rule. Some have even been murdered—Anna Politkovskaya, the crusading Chechnya correspondent shot in her apartment building in Moscow in 2006; Alexander Litvinenko, the spy poisoned with polonium-210 in London months later; the activist Boris Nemtsov, shot on a bridge in Moscow in early 2015. While the evidence connecting Putin’s own circle to the killings is circumstantial, it merits scrutiny.The Clinton bodycounts are circumstantial too. Meh, wish Our Team would start suiciding some folks...might as well join the fun while we can! Fair is fair!
Putin would count as the pre-eminent statesman of our time. On the world stage, who can vie with him? Only perhaps Recep Tayyip Erdo?an of Turkey.Oh lovely, surrender to one of the other, only options for a good
traditional leader? Who's tradition is this? Meh, I choose Option C -
And he refused, with ever blunter rhetoric, to accept for Russia a subservient role in an American-run world system drawn up by foreign politicians and business leaders.Oh, great gobs of scud! What BS! He joined, then co-opted (likely with the help of KGB files) the mobsters and would-be political rivals and maintains power over them and the state journalists more along the lines of a General Secretary, autocratic Chancellor or old-time Czar! And his angst with America is likely as much about butthurt over losing the Cold War as it is the fragile Russian ego. Not all American's look to dominate Russia just because of Russia or Putin...but not all American's buy a line that is all in or out...most of us are wise enough to separate good and bad...it should not be an either/or all/nothing deal. People that champion a winner always want absolutes...and in some rare and very high-order levels (like Belief, Principles and Good and Evil) that is OK...in most all other cases it justifies tyranny.
Putin makes my point -
“We will not tolerate any humiliation to the national pride of Russians, or any threat to the integrity of the country.”That covers a lot of ground...a wide net is always a favorite of the Strong Man leader-type, and the emphasis on the negative vs the positive is psychologically prototypical of the general Russian ego and in the Strong Man leader-type. We talk of positives in America, "American Exceptionalism" in a positive pride way...not in a negative way like "We will not tolerate threats to American Exceptionalism!" and can you imagine the reaction if we did? Who died and made you Putin?! Eh?
"...and he took a hard line on terrorism..."Really? The champion of Iran and Syria? Why does the existential threat to Christian nations as ours as posed by the murderous Mohammadan's across the globe not unite us? What's the hold up?
The two episodes of concerted outrage about Putin among Western progressives have both involved issues trivial to the world, but vital to the world of progressivism. The first came in 2014, when the Winter Olympics, which were to be held in Sochi, presented an opportunity to damage Russia economically. The ad hom bruised ego stuff aside...I agree, and wish authors like this would specifically call this out more - Progressives! Could care less about that ridiculous dreck Team Obama and his Euro-bitches came at Russia with...it trivializes real issues and makes the rest of us look like dorks...but WE did not put these puppets in power!
The second campaign against Putin has been the attempt by the outgoing Obama administration to cast doubt on the legitimacy of last November’s presidential election by implying that the Russian government somehow “hacked” it. Again, I agree. This was a three-fer for the Progressive Junta - Save Hitlery's criminal ass, trash Trump and trash Putin. And while I sympathize with the box Putin was in...it was not our leader he met Putin and his people and talked casually about "felxibility" and conspired with shady Ukrainians and Russians...and beyond calling the accusations ridiculous and pathetic, while I wanted more action form him I understood the risk of inserting himself too deep into the issue...but there are two things he could have done and only one of them we could verify in real-time:
1) Provide arms-length evidence undermining Obama & Clinton - which we cannot tell has happened or not.
2) Stop giving people back in America a reason to distrust him - re: Iran, Syria, Venezuela.
So, at least in part he has not helped the situation, himself or his nation.
The United States was offered the chance to lay out the rules of the world system, and accepted the offer with a vengeance. Russia was offered the role of submitting to that system. (Sigh) Jeepers Cripes! More fragile ego. Hey, OK we can play that game too...we demand that you accept your defeat graciously and give us due credit for not truly seizing the opportunity with a vengeance by marching onto your territory and taking it all! But somehow I doubt that restraint registers on your poor bruised heads...and I doubt the favor would be returned when the Progs implode our nation into chaos! So perhaps I'll just whip out my "Eff you!" now.
Ukraine/Crimea...not buying the always Russia meme...this Putin Doctrine applied equally for the US would mean basically all our neighbors sovereignty is forfeit by proximity and ethnic make up, right? I mean look at all the Latin's in Southern border states, all the French, English, Scot, Welsh & Irish in Northern border states. That sh*t belongs to us, don't tell us it doesn't! NATO aside, Ukraine and Crimea is about one thing - Russian energy monopoly, period!
NATO sucks, yes they suck, we own the Cold War and those ungrateful Euro-sh*ts can stand up on their own or be mauled to death...don't really GAFF which one happens!
I'd like to work with Putin, not Erdogan, not the Mohammadan theocrats of Persia, not the suicidal Eurotards...but Putin has to work with us. Why is it one must come hat-in-hand and kneel before the Czar and no give and take?
Where's the bone?
As far as this article asserts the problem is all on the American side...we need to understand Putin, we need to assuage his ego, we need to capitulate to his hegemony wherever presented without question...or we are mindless barbarians bent on destruction and oceans of blood!
Oh...OK...that sounds helpful and realistic...
/
There is no bone...
