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Putin's Useful Idiot

December 26, 2005 05:18 AM

Imagine this: A sitting Member of Congress who disapproves President Bush's foreign policy opens an office in Calgary devoted to mustering opposition -- with, of course, the tacit approval of the host government. Now meet Natalya Vitrenko, the radical socialist who leads the New Opposition bloc in the Rada:

MOSCOW, Russia [AP] -- A Ukrainian lawmaker on Thursday harshly criticized her nation's plan to join NATO and opened an information center in Moscow aimed at opposing the move.... [snip]

"If Ukraine joins NATO, it will become an open enemy of Russia," said Vitrenko, who represents a fringe party. "Ukraine will host NATO bases presenting a direct military threat to Russia." ...

...she said, speaking from the capital of a country that remains a direct military threat and all-round antagonist to the country she ostensibly serves in parliament.

Yushchenko has made NATO membership a top goal.

Vitrenko, who ran in Ukraine's 1999 presidential election, spoke at the opening of the Anti-NATO Information Center, which is located on a freshly painted ground floor of a shabby apartment building at 10 Khokhlovsky Pereulok.

I'm wondering if this foreign NGO will survive Russia's new restrictions on outside agitators. Actually, I'm wondering why this group doesn't have Kremlin office space. Did Gerhard Schroeder take it?

Sergei Markov, a Kremlin-linked political analyst who helped run the ill-starred campaign of Yushchenko's Moscow-backed rival, also attended the opening.
You don't say.
"Our nation is being dragged into NATO behind the people's back," Vitrenko said. ...

...about a process that is covered in Russian and Ukrainian papers virtually every day.

"We must mobilize all healthy forces of society to oppose this evil scenario." ... [snip]

You know, evil scenario. Like routinely meddling in the internal political affairs of a neighboring country. Or threatening to violate an explicit agreement and quadruple the price of gas sold to Ukraine almost overnight. During the winter.

During recent weeks, Moscow and Kiev have been locked in an acrimonious dispute over Russian natural gas deliveries to Ukraine. Gazprom more than quadrupled the price for Ukraine starting next year, and Ukraine has refused to pay.

And here to accept the award for silliest conspiracy theory...

Markov claimed Thursday that Gazprom had been caught in a "trap" set by the Ukrainian authorities, who will use the conflict to fan anti-Russian sentiments. [Emphases mine]

Something's got to make people distrust those Russians. Maybe freezing to death will do it.

Russia | Ukraine

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Comments

Kofi Annan has stepped down at the U.N. - at least a decade too late. I predict future historians will find it difficult to judge whether this ineffectual dupe was the puppet of genocidal regimes and autocrats or just their indispensable enabler. It is tough to fully enumerate the sins and consequences of this repugnant figure, but this WSJ editorial begins the grim task.

December 17, 2006 05:59 AM · Permalink

I am often asked what it's like living in Ukraine. Well, yesterday afternoon I heard some hammering, and it sounded pretty close, so I went to se what was up. Looking out from a living room window I found two men in a cherry-picker, and they were hacking away at the rim of my balcony with sledge mallets, breaking away the concrete and tearing up the tiles. I figured the owner of my apartment must have forgotten to tell me she was having work done. Today I found out this wasn't the case. Alarmed, she phoned the Zhek - the state agency responsible for, but rarely inclined to undertake, the upkeep of public property. Their response was basically, News to us. We are now facing the prospect that we may never learn who these men were and why they were attacking my balcony, which now needs extensive repairs. It is not beyond the realm of possibility that I have been victimized in an act of serial vandalism by two men with sledges and a cherry-picker. That, my friends, is what it's like to live in Ukraine.

November 15, 2006 04:23 PM · Permalink

Help, I'm on crack!

Oops - I mean, Help, I've been hacked! Not sure how long it was there, but someone managed to place an unauthorized link in Ethanistan. If anyone clicked on it, I apologize for not catching it sooner. Unless it linked to something cool. In which case, I'm glad I could open your mind to new exotic experiences, man.

August 23, 2006 12:05 PM · Permalink

REVEALER, REVEAL THYSELF

Hmmmm. You can read through the entirety of Tony Judt's defense of the Mearsheimer/Walt paper without ever learning that Judt has called for the dissolution of Israel. Yet it's a not-unreasonable assumption that this argument, which was (of course) very controversial when it was aired, was what led the Times to Judt's doorstep in the first place. Bad copy editing?

April 19, 2006 08:29 AM · Permalink

Blair: Contra the "Doctrine of Benign Inactivity"

Britain being home to some of earth's most cynical and repugnant twits -- George Galloway and Harold Pinter, to name just two -- it is easy sometimes to forget the heroic moral fortitude its leaders have demonstrated at critical moments across history. Tony Blair reminds us why he deserves mention alongside Churchill and Thatcher.

March 22, 2006 10:08 AM · Permalink

Greg Gutfeld answers one of the blogosphere's great quandaries: How do you even begin to satirize a Web site that presents Alec Baldwin, Deepak Chopra and other B-list dinner guests as deep thinkers? It's the funniest thing in cyberspace at the moment. Don't miss Greg's "bio" -- and definitely do not miss the comments left below his entries by HuffPosters, confused and angry, who came for the wisdom of Cindy Sheehan and got rabbit-punched by this smartass.

March 1, 2006 10:58 AM · Permalink

A true gentleman of the Blogosphere has learned he must battle more than just Moonbats in the months and years to come. Stop by GM's Corner and give George a shout -- and maybe leave some change in the bowl on the way out.

February 16, 2006 05:29 AM · Permalink

Fight Fascism - Eat a Butter Cookie. Wikipedia provides a handy list of Danish companies here. Hey, if all of us here band together and buy Danish that would be like ... four or five bucks. But it's the principle that counts!

February 9, 2006 08:13 PM · Permalink

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