Tolerating Putin's Evil Empire

Tolerating Putin's Evil Empire
Why Bush is ignoring the latest Russian crackdown.

By Kim Iskyan
Updated Wednesday, September 24, 2003, at 4:29 AM PT


President Bush will overlook President Putin's dark side

Russia's role in the war on terrorism will be at the top of the agenda when U.S. President George W. Bush meets with Russian President Vladimir Putin later this week. Bush wants Russian troops in Iraq, help with North Korea, and cooperation with derailing Iran's nuclear aspirations. In return, he'll illustrate the harsh reality behind U.S. rhetoric about promoting democracy by largely ignoring the ways in which Putin has been undermining its foundations in Russia.

Putin, a former head of Russia's intelligence agency, has done a lot right since he became president in early 2000, taking Russia off the list of countries that can't seem to get their act together. Unlike Boris Yeltsin, his predecessor, Putin doesn't change prime ministers as often as he changes his socks, resulting in a relatively tranquil political environment. Although economic disparities remain enormous, and a small group of oligarchs dominates the economy, Russia is in the midst of its fifth consecutive year of economic growth, inflation is under control, and the ruble—once the currency equivalent of a late-night-show punch line—is strong. Perhaps more important, Putin has made Russia's progress toward a market economy almost irreversible, in part through a string of impressive economic reforms, like implementing a flat tax, and a range of other important changes to the country's economic infrastructure, such as land, pension, judicial, and labor reforms.

Putin's dark side—the one that Bush will pretend to not see—is his budding authoritarianism and his ever-closer association with the siloviki, a powerful group of former KGB and law enforcement officials. Putin has severely limited freedom of expression: Reporters Without Borders ranks Russia 121st out of 139 countries in its worldwide press freedom index, and a few months ago Russia's last independent national TV network was replaced with a state-sponsored sports channel in a final blow to national private television. Putin has made meddling in the electoral process an art and destroyed any attempt to balance power between branches of government. The brutal war in the breakaway territory of Chechnya regularly features astonishing infringements of basic human rights.


But as the head scientist in two ongoing large-scale democracy-building experiments in Afghanistan and Iraq, the United States can't afford to look away as Russia retreats from democracy. Putin's ongoing attack on Yukos Oil Company, Russia's largest company and soon to be the world's fourth-largest oil producer, is a vivid illustration of what the Bush government is choosing to ignore




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Kim Iskyan has spent the past eight years in the former Soviet Union as an investment banker, consultant, and journalist


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http://slate.msn.com/id/2088796/

and was lined up for the premier league when Bush 1 was VP to Reagan and planning the downfall of the Evil Empire. His main raison d'etre is to open up Russian oil field business to foreign investment: yesterday the UK's BBC announced UK oil firms had pledged up to $13 billion over the next ten years for a slice of the action, a move engineered by Bush 1 on his recent visit to Ras's dacha - as widely reported and commented on in the DU.

He has trouble brewing in the UK: Berezhovsky is fighting extradition to Russia and recently won a stay in London, threatening to spill the beans on Putin's dirty dealings in the oil industry, as well as money laundering coverups that resulted in direct financing to the 911 al qaeda perpetrators.

One of Putin's assinine aparatchiks Roman Abramovitch has been led up the proverbial garden path to buy Chelsea Football Club and has gone on a massive $100 million+ spending spree on strikers, selling off many of his aluminium holdings to finance the move. Abramovitch's personal fortune results largely from self-imposed favourable tax concessions on his oil business interests as governor of a Russian province.

Putin's coterie of advisors is clinging on to the hope that no one more malleable to the US oil industry is likely to emerge as a potential frontrunner to succeed/replace Ras. He may not be a disastrous drunken liability like Yeltsin but his days are surely numbered if the 911 money laundering coverups are finally aired.

"Bush's dark side—the one that Putin will pretend to not see—is his budding authoritarianism and his ever-closer association with the fascist NeoCons, a powerful group of former Defense and intelligence officials. Bush has severely limited freedom of expression in all forms of mass media. Bush has made meddling in the electoral process an art and destroyed any attempt to balance power between branches of government."

:)