Archive for the ‘Politics’ Category
Posted on January 29, 2009 - by Venik
Politics of Fear?
Lou Dobbs – a noted Republican xenophobe and CNN’s resident Mexico-basher – is accusing Obama of engaging in “politics of fear” by trying to push the economic stimulus package through Congress. Lou says that Bush used this sort of scare tactics and now Obama is following suit. Unfurling the 650-page legislation proposal into the camera [...]
Posted on January 28, 2009 - by Venik
Why Bailout Will Not Work, Again
Back in September I wrote a short piece on Bush’s bailout plan – Why Bailout Will Not Work. The bottom line of my rant was: the US economy is so massive and the US national debt is so high that the federal government is just too poor to fix the problem by simply throwing cash [...]
Posted on January 8, 2009 - by Venik
Paying Ukraine’s Gas Bill
Bloomberg reports that Ukraine’s president is using the gas war with Russia as a way to endear himself to the West and to improve EU’s disposition toward his country. What dark twisted alleys of logic led Bloomberg analysts to this extraordinary conclusion we will probably never know. Luckily. “Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko may be calculating [...]
Posted on January 3, 2009 - by Venik
Gaza Rocketeers
Just as I was starting to get bored, another squabble broke out between Israel and Hamas. Apparently, the mighty Hamas army has been firing rockets in the general direction of Negev wastelands surrounding Gaza, causing alarming damage to local wildlife. Or so Mark Regev, the Israeli government spokesman, tells us. Ms. Amanpour of CNN has [...]
Posted on December 27, 2008 - by Venik
Uncomplicated Perspective
Long time, no posts. I resolved to not use a computer during my vacation. Quitting smoking was easier. Anyway, I just ran across an amusing editorial in NY Times about what Obama should do vis-à-vis Vladimir Putin. I am not sure if the author was trying to be entertaining, being coyly naive, or if he [...]
Posted on November 22, 2008 - by Venik
Gas Wars: Episode V
Russia’s natural gas monopoly Gazprom says Ukraine has a $2.4 billion past-due balance. Ukraine acknowledges the debt, but say the amount is $1.3 billion. The $1-billion difference in the two positions is due to Ukraine only counting what it owes for September-October period, while Gazprom also counts November plus various past-due fees and fines. Medvedev [...]
Posted on November 17, 2008 - by Venik
Exploding UAVs in Georgia
After nearly four months of ridiculous allegations against Russia, Saakashvili’s regime still has the capacity to surprise. In the latest PR move, Georgian so-called leadership claimed that a Russian UAV crashed on its territory and later exploded, killing two policemen and injuring eight others. If this claim was true, this would have been the first [...]
Posted on November 15, 2008 - by Venik
“Peter the Great” in Toulon
During November 5-8 missile cruiser “Peter the Great” and destroyer “Admiral Chabanenko” of Russia’s Northern Fleet visited the French naval base in Toulon. The Northern Fleet taskforce, consisting of four surface vessels and two nuclear-powered attack submarines, is conducting excersices in the Meditteranian before heading to Venezuela for joint maneuvers with the Mariscal Sucre-class “General [...]
Posted on November 15, 2008 - by Venik
Photos: Russians in Georgia
“The 2008 South Ossetia War was a land, air and sea war fought between Georgia on one side, and Russia, and the break-away regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia on the other. A civil war fought after the breakup of the Soviet Union left parts of South Ossetia in control of an unrecognized separatist government [...]
Posted on November 15, 2008 - by Venik
Russian Missiles: the Minsk Option
A number of times over the past months and even years various Russian government officials mentioned a possibility of a ballistic missile deployment in Belarus. The independent-minded Lukashenko kept Putin at an arm’s length, while managing to achieve a seemingly impossible task: to annoy Moscow, Brussels, and Washington all at the same time. Lately, however, [...]
Posted on November 11, 2008 - by Venik
Medvedev’s Missile Myth. Or Not…
In his recent article in the Moscow Times entitled “Medvedev’s Missile Myth“, Alexander Golts – a Russian defense analyst (without technical education or military background, as seems to be the rule for Russian military “experts”) popular among Western journalists in Moscow – expressed the following idea: “Imagine the following scenario: After the standoff between the [...]
Posted on November 8, 2008 - by Venik
Obama, Biden Complicate Relations with Russia
Paradoxical as this may sound, the victory of pacifist Obama over his saber-rattling Republican opponent makes the Kremlin very concerned. One reason for this is simple: an idiot in the White House was good for Moscow. Russians joke that Dubya was their best president ever. Indeed, Russians have Bush – not Putin – to thank [...]
Posted on November 7, 2008 - by Venik
Saakashvili’s Endgame
As waning wartime patriotism in Georgia gives way to realistic assessments of the facts, Saakashvili can now see the end of his political career rapidly approaching. As predicted, the situation in Tbilisi is developing rapidly and Saakashvili may be expected to make his endgame early next year, probably soon after Obama’s inaugural speech in Washington. [...]
Posted on November 4, 2008 - by Venik
Russia’s Financial Crisis and Beluga Caviar
I just ran across a rather amusing article in the Financial Times by Robert Skidelsky. The point of his rant is nicely summarized in the last paragraph: “Russia needs to scale down its geopolitical ambition to its real weight – that of an emerging economy with only 3 per cent of the world’s gross domestic [...]
