Russian president wants to meet with American "dissidents"

I had it wrong on Twitter earlier this evening. I thought I'd heard earlier in the evening that Vladimir Putin wanted to meet with American dissidents when he visits the US. I was way off. I should have known the whole idea was ridiculous...how silly of me.

It was Dmitri Medvedev who said he wants to meet with American dissidents! Boy, do I ever feel like a dork.

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev says he would like to meet with "dissidents" when he visits the U.S. next week.

Russian news agencies quote him as telling a group of visiting foreign experts that "I believe there are dissidents in the United States."

Yeah, you bet your vodka-soaked ass there are dissidents in the US, sport. We're just not sent off to the gulags. Yet.

Tell you what, D. Come on over to my place and we'll talk.

Testing the new kid

Well, this will certainly be interesting.

A Russian Air Force chief said Saturday that Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has offered an island as a temporary base for strategic Russian bombers, the Interfax news agency reported.

The chief of staff of Russia's long range aviation, Maj. Gen. Anatoly Zhikharev, also said Cuba could be used to base the aircraft, Interfax reported.

Sounds familiar, doesn't it?

Think the Russians have an idea of what kind of president they're dealing with? Unfortunately, I think they do.

Obama to Russia: Will you be my friend?

Barack Obama's foreign policy will make us the laughingstock of the world.

President Obama offered to consider scrapping plans for a missile defense shield in Europe if Russia helps rein in Iran's nuclear program, the Russian newspaper Kommersant reported.

[ ... ]

Obama inherited plans to build the system in Poland and the Czech Republic from the Bush administration, but the new administration has equivocated over the project. Though the plans were put in place to deter nations like Iran and North Korea from launching attacks and developing nuclear weapons, Russia has interpreted the planned installation as a threat.

I've asked this before: If Russia has no aggressive intentions, how is this a threat to them? Yeah, that's a rhetorical question.

At least with Bush, the world only hated us.

Is Kyrgyzstan base closure a big deal?

I pose this question because I really want to know...why is Kyrgyzstan's decision to close our airbase there such a big deal? The Reuters article describes the airlift hub as "vital for supplying U.S.-led troops fighting in Afghanistan". Despite 27 years in the Air Force, I'm not an expert on such matters, so maybe that's why I can't figure out what's so "vital" about the airbase.

Take a look at the map (click it if you need a larger version). Kyrgyzstan is land-locked and isn't significantly closer to Afghanistan than any US or allied airbase in Europe or the Middle East from where supplies and troops headed for Afghanistan might originate. OK, so it makes sense to have a nearby staging area outside the theater of operations IF the theater of operations is so hot you don't dare risk staging troops and equipment within it, say at Bagram Air Base. While Afghanistan is far from peachy, I'd say the Kyrgyzstan airbase is more convenient than vital. I just don't see why troops and equipment can't be flown directly into Afghanistan rather than first stopping in Kyrgyzstan.

I suspect what this is really about is the symbolism of a regional ally, an alliance which Russia has chafed at from the start. Russia paid Kyrgyzstan a paltry $2 billion and in return the Kyrgyz government is giving us the boot. The symbolism was important to the US as a display of broad consensus in the war on terror, but a constant rock in Russia's shoe.

Like I said...I'm not an expert on this stuff, so if anyone reading this has other ideas, I'd love to hear them.

Putin facing internal dissent, too

In a follow-up to yesterday's post about growing popular unrest in Czar Putin's Russia, things are actually worse better than I thought.

The protests, which began on Dec 14, rapidly took on a political hue and Mr Putin, who is intolerant of dissent, ordered the Kremlin's top officials in the far east to use force next time. But senior adminstrators refused to intervene and a week later the government was forced to send a special detachment of riot police from Moscow to break up a second protest in Valdivostok.

Furious that he had again been disobeyed, Mr Putin directed Vladislav Surkov, his top ideologue, to sack the newly appointed head of internal affairs in Primorye, the region surrounding Vladivostok.

But the official, Maj Gen Andrei Nikolayev, flatly refused to leave his post. Sources say he threatened to expose corruption linked to the Kremln in the Russian far east if Mr Putin pressed ahead.

Such a gesture of defiance is almost unheard of in Russia. Gen Nikolayev was supposed to be the man entrusted by the Kremlin to keep regional officials under control.

It seems that Vladimir Putin has two choices. He can back off and let democracy (such as it actually exists in Russia) run its course, or he can drop the mask, exposing himself as the totalitarian that he is and drop all pretenses of democracy.

Any bets against the latter?

Putin's popular support nosediving in Russia

Russians are a fickle bunch it seems. As long as oil and gas prices were flying high and Russia was bullying small neighboring states, they loved their Vladimir Putin, whether as president or prime minister.

But with Russia's economy circling the drain along with everyone else's, old Vladimir isn't looking so hot any more.

The march was sanctioned on the condition that demonstrators kept off the road, carried no banners and chanted no slogans. [That's not a demonstration, that's just a bunch of people walking on the sidewalk. --ed.]

The marchers blithely ignored the restrictions. Marching down the city's main street, they chanted "Putin resign!". Some banners [even compared] the prime minister to Hitler.

Although only several hundred began the march, ordinary passersby applauded in encouragement as they passed and many even joined them. By the time the demonstrators reached their finishing point in a square dominated by a statue of Lenin, their number had swelled to nearly 2,000.

It might not seem like a huge number, but the government has reason to be worried. Russia is a country where most dissenters -- save for a small hardcore group led by former chess champion Garry Kasparov - have been cowed into submission.

If the unrest spreads, watch for Putin to enact some form of emergency measures to completely stifle dissent (even more so than now) and stay in power indefinitely.

Russian prof: US to collapse in 2010

Igor Panarin, a Russian academic, predicts that the US will collapse and break up in 2010. Not just "by" or "around" 2010. In 2010. Late June or early July, to be exact.

For a decade, Russian academic Igor Panarin has been predicting the U.S. will fall apart in 2010. For most of that time, he admits, few took his argument -- that an economic and moral collapse will trigger a civil war and the eventual breakup of the U.S. -- very seriously. Now he's found an eager audience: Russian state media.

[ ... ]

Mr. Panarin posits, in brief, that mass immigration, economic decline, and moral degradation will trigger a civil war next fall and the collapse of the dollar. Around the end of June 2010, or early July, he says, the U.S. will break into six pieces -- with Alaska reverting to Russian control.

[ ... ]

California will form the nucleus of what he calls "The Californian Republic," and will be part of China or under Chinese influence. Texas will be the heart of "The Texas Republic," a cluster of states that will go to Mexico or fall under Mexican influence. Washington, D.C., and New York will be part of an "Atlantic America" that may join the European Union. Canada will grab a group of Northern states Prof. Panarin calls "The Central North American Republic." Hawaii, he suggests, will be a protectorate of Japan or China, and Alaska will be subsumed into Russia.

Let me just go out on a limb here and say without reservation that Mr. Panarin is, uh, how do I put it? Oh yeah...full of crap.