I am rather fond of the English language, even though it really makes no sense at all to me. My mum sent me this cute little example of the wonders of our language, most likely gotten from here.
Only I hit Walter in the nose.
I only hit Walter in the nose.
I hit only Walter in the nose.
I hit Walter only in the nose.
I hit Walter in the only nose.
I hit Walter in the nose only.
One week ago today, the Russian human rights lawyer Stanislav Markelov was murdered. The whole case is quite sad--Markelov was only thirty-four years old when he died. Even though I don't agree with many of Markelov's positions, I would never condone murder. A journalist, Anastasia Baburina, was also fatally wounded by Markelov's killer. She was only twenty-five years old.
When the story first broke, I predicted that the Western media would pin the blame of this assassination on Putin--and of course, they did. It's all the fault of the former KGB, the media says. And of course it all ultimately goes back to Putin, doesn't it? Isn't every political assassination Putin's doing?
Well, no. Putin certainly is not the only person in Russia with a political agenda, nor the sole one with the money to pursue such an agenda. With enough money, anyone can buy anything, and Russia is no exception to this rule. I do not think we can be entirely certain that Putin ordered this killing. We should not discount a certain group of people: the Chechens.
The first reason why I believe that the Chechens are probably behind this murder is because of its similarities to two other famous murders: those of Paul Klebnikov and Anna Politkovskaya. I believe both of these people were killed on orders of the Chechen government (though Klebnikov's murder also was strongly linked to Boris Berezovsky). Markelov was shot, just like Klebnikov and Politkovskaya. Such an overt method of killing is not very characteristic of the KGB--they would prefer something covert, like an obscure poison.
Secondly, we must consider Markelov's work. He was the lawyer for Anna Politkovskaya and the family of Elza Kungayeva, a young Chechen woman allegedly murdered by former Russian colonel Yuri Budanov. The Chechens had relationships with these two people: the Chechen leadership hated Politkovskaya (see Steve LeVine's Putin's Labyrinth) and they hate Budanov. Budanov was the first Russian officer to be prosecuted for and convicted of war crimes in Chechnya. He recently got out of prison fifteen months early.
My thinking goes like this: the Chechens hate Politkovskaya, and they hate Budanov, especially the fact that he was released from prison early and did not receive a heavier sentence in the first place. In their minds, Markelov is responsible for this. Somehow, they think, he should have ensured that Budanov received a harsh sentence. So, annoyed and angry at this turn of events, they take it out on Markelov.
It is plausible and very possible. The Chechens are not very nice people. Too often they are portrayed as innocent victims of Russian aggression. People in the West too often forget that these people took schoolchildren hostage, looked them in the eye, and shot them in cold blood. Anyone who can do that is capable of just about any brutality--in fact, hiring an assassin to gun down a young lawyer would be child's play for them.
I am not trying to say that Putin is completely innocent and has not done bad things--quite the contrary. He has a shady past in the KGB and most likely did do bad things, and he probably will do bad things in the future. But he is not the only person capable of ordering murder in Russia, and we would do well not to forget that.
Photo credit.
Today is President George W. Bush's last day in office. To say that I'm sad would be an understatement. I haven't agreed with Bush on everything, but overall I have been relatively satisfied with the Bush years. After all, I do think that Bush deserves quite a bit of credit for keeping this country safe all these years, especially in light of the fact that we have very determined enemies. It's much too early to even begin to guess how Bush will be remembered in history, but I hope he is remembered fairly, for his faults as well as accomplishments, and not as some evil, terrible person like the left likes to portray him.
A NeoConstant Exclusive
Andrew L. Jaffee recently wrote about Russia’s troubling relationship with their past, specifically with the mass-murderer Josef Stalin. In this article, the BBC reports that Stalin came in third in a national search in Russia to find the greatest Russian. Apparently, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin is engaging in some historical revisionism, trying to justify Stalin as someone to be admired, rather than a monster to be ashamed of.
The whitewashing of Stalin isn’t just done in the former Soviet Union. I, knowing what I know now, feel that Stalin never really got his due in history. I think he has been remembered a lot better than he should be. In high school history classes, Adolf Hitler is always the primary focus of World War II. Stalin is very rarely mentioned, and he’s never mentioned when one studies the period leading up to the war or the post-war period. The impression I always got from my history classes that Stalin was bad, but, never mind that, because Hitler was much worse.
In fact, this is a common misconception, and I came to realise this entirely on my own through independent reading. Stalin killed many more people than Hitler did--the wide range of figures I’ve seen (between fifteen and fifty million) definitely exceed the generally accepted twelve million that Hitler killed. The people in the Soviet Union under his rule were also severely oppressed, kept in check with his murderous NKVD.
And this is to say nothing about the whitewashing of Communism. Communism has killed untold millions of people, yet all that people focus on is Nazism and its evils. Nazism was extremely evil--I would never dispute that--but it was no more evil than Communism.
Andrew provides a response in the comments section of his original article about this universal whitewashing: since the Allies sided with Stalin in the Second World War, he postulates, it is hard for us to come to terms with the fact that we allied ourselves with someone as bad, if not worse, than Hitler.
Uncomfortable as this fact may be, it’s time we came to terms with the fact that Stalin, as intelligent and fascinating as he was (and I have more to say about that another time), was a despicable mass-murderer.
Photo: Stalin in 1902, when he was about twenty-three years old; credit
Also at NeoConstant. Comments on this thread are closed--please direct them to the original post at NeoConstant.
When it became clear on the fateful night of November 4 that Barack Obama was going to win the presidential election, I did two things: I called my mum and I went on my computer and checked out what was being said in the blogosphere.
I believe it was around this time that I first saw the speculation about Obama being president for life. Someone brought it up on the comments section of the excellent blog Gates of Vienna. Obama had worried me for a long time then. I was devastated when he got the presidential nomination--I predicted in early 2008 that if he got the nomination, he would win the election.
After Obama's election, I came to the conclusion that we may have elected him president for life. Think about it: what's to stop the democrats from pushing through some amendment removing term limits or changing the length of the presidential term? The move has already started: Representative Jose Serrano of New York is trying to push through a measure to repeal the 22nd Amendment. Barack Obama, the Anointed One, has not even taken office yet! Yes, this is an ongoing movement on Serrano's part, but why introduce it again now?
All Obama cared about during his campaign was getting power. Now that he has been elected, his sole goal will be to retain his power. He does not actually care about America or doing what is best for the American people--for an elaboration of my thoughts on this, see this essay. One could even argue that he is a megalomaniac.
Towards the end of Vladimir Putin's presidential term, there was a lot of speculation about whether he would honour the Russian constitution and step down from his position as president. To great surprise, he did, naming a successor--though there is speculation he will take power again soon. My point is this: Americans see these events in Russia and are ready to condemn Putin, rightfully so, if and when he holds onto power. But when a similar situation arises in America, they are too stupid or blind to see it.
I guess we can turn to Stalin for a quote on this situation--Stalin, though a singularly evil man, was quite intelligent. He reportedly once said, "It is enough that the people know there was an election. The people who cast the votes decide nothing. The people who count the votes decide everything." How right he was.
Comments for this post are now closed.
Took them long enough, didn't it?
The Illinois House of Representatives has voted to impeach the state's scandal-hit governor, Rod Blagojevich.
Mr Blagojevich was arrested last month and charged with attempting to solicit bribes, as well as "selling" Barack Obama's vacant Senate seat.
Illinois's State Senate will now try Mr Blagojevich. If found guilty, the governor will be forced out of office.
Mr Blagojevich denies any wrongdoing, and has vowed to fight to keep his job - and stay out of jail....
A NeoConstant exclusive.
When I picked up Peter Baker and Susan Glasser’s book Kremlin Rising: Vladimir Putin’s Russia and the End of Revolution, I expected it to be the usual unsubstantiated, anti-Russian drivel that is so common in the Western world today. Knowing that both authors worked at The Washington Post, a left-leaning newspaper, didn’t endear me very much to the book, either.
But, overall, I was mistaken. Kremlin Rising is a very well-written, meticulously researched book that presents a relatively fair picture of Russia today. Even when talking about American President George W. Bush, the authors refrain from the usual insults and bashing that I so often see in books on current events, and instead focus on presenting the facts in a very unbiased manner. They explore Russia’s transition to a pseudo-democracy that admired the West in the 1990s to the more authoritarian, Soviet-obsessed Russia of the first decade of the twentieth century.
Throughout the book, the authors show us the wide variety of people living in Russia today, from an underpaid lawyer living in a small town to a woman living in Moscow who prospered during Putin’s presidency to the oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky himself. And of course, such a study of the Russian people would not be complete without Vladimir Putin. The authors catalog his story, from the humble beginnings in a communal apartment in Leningrad (now St. Petersburg) to a KGB post in Dresden and eventually on to the Kremlin, where he would be handed complete power on December 31, 1999.
This book is not without its flaws, however, and these flaws occur in the discussions on Chechnya, which does not surprise me at all. Discussions on Chechnya usually turn even the most intelligent people into sounding like complete nitwits. For example, the authors quote Putin’s response that he made to Western journalists after the Beslan bloodbath. Some of the journalists asked why he did not negotiate with the Chechen terrorists, and he responded, “Why don’t you meet Osama bin Laden, invite him to Brussels or to the White House, engage in talks, ask him what he wants and give it to him so he leaves you in peace? You find it possible to set limits in your dealings with these bastards, so why should we talk to people who are child killers?” (pgs 36-37). The authors dismiss this as a straw man argument, but Putin is right on this, if you ask me. After seeing what the Chechens have done, I certainly would not negotiate with them either. The authors’ apologist stance for Chechnya makes their chapters on the Chechens read like a ridiculous sob story. No, I don’t agree with the anti-democratic reforms that Putin instituted after Beslan, but I do believe it is wrong to blame Beslan on him, as so many do.
I would recommend this book. Overall, it provides a fascinating picture of Russia, both of ordinary people and politicians, both ruling and opposition. Anything with regards to Chechnya should be taken with a grain of salt, but this caution applies to most Western views on Chechnya–as of yet, I have not found someone who has a realistic view of the Chechens.
Also at NeoConstant. Comments on this thread are closed--please direct them to the original post at NeoConstant.
I'm working on a new template for the blog. Please bear with me, as I'm still in the process of customising it...
Update, 9:56 pm:
I hated the other template, so that one's down and the original one is back up. But I'm still looking for another one now, so if you have any suggestions, don't be afraid to post them.
2008 was a big year, both for me personally and the world. This year, I exploded onto the political blogging scene. I'd had my political awakening in October 2007, but I did keep this blog rather apolitical for a bit after that. This blog was always meant to be about my interests, and as I have become more and more interested in politics, my postings have reflected that.
I graduated from high school this year (I'm so thankful that's finally over with) and started university, which I am absolutely loving. I voted in my first presidential election, something I've been looking forward to doing since 1996.
In the blogosphere, Charles Johnson finally revealed how insane he truly is when he cut all ties with Robert Spencer, one of the most knowledgeable people on Islam. New blogs sprang up this year, including NeoConstant and Ballot, Soap, Jury, Ammo.
In the world, lots and lots of things happened, and I obviously could not hope to list them all, so I'll just list what interested me the most.
In Russia, they elected an attractive new president on March 2. Sure, he may not be officially running the country, but it's nice seeing his picture in the news stories rather than Putin's.
Radovan Karadzic, the former Bosnian Serb leader who has been indicted for war crimes by a kangaroo court, was captured and transferred to The Hague, thus sparking my intense interest in the Balkans.
America elected a complete idiot for president, thus sealing its doom for at least four years. George Bush kept our country so safe these past seven years that Americans have become complacent and in denial that there are many, many people would want to kill us.
And Geert Wilders has continued to stand strong against Islamization.
