Putin: Terrorist Aiming to Derail Bush

[MODU]

You think so?  I know he was a hard-liner, but on the flip side, I think he's done fairly well given the state of his nation.

[MODU]

.....and oppressing all opposition. 

hehehe . . . we're talking about Putin, not the DNC's attack on Nader to keep him off he ballots. 

[MODU]

The maturity on this thread has just hit a new low.

[MODU]

Putin is the leader of a country which basically collapsed following the end of the cold war.  The populous (most of them poor) is widely spread out throughout the nation, with many parts of the nation inhabitable.  To the south he has a separatist nation which has been sponsoring terroristic activity against it's former countrymen.  To the East he has a booming Chinese population which is rapidly approaching Capitalism, and to the West he has European nations that expect Russia to just wake up and become a fully open Democracy.  I'd like to see any of you sit in his chair and try to balance all of these external pressures and build an open society after years of the populous being dependent upon the government for their livelihood (take note all of you that want to keep moving the US further into a wellfare state).

We all know that "Democracy" doesn't happen over night.  It didn't here in the US nor in Europe.  So what is needed to keep a country together during the early stages?  A strongman.  This is the roll that Putin has taken upon himself to hold his nation together.  While many might view this as a retreat back towards the days of the USSR, there is a vast difference.  Putin has been open with most of the Western nations, trying to form ties that will lead to greater free-market access as well as foreign funding.  A perfect example is the problem with Yukos.  The last thing I heard was Russia was going to take over a portion of the Yukos operation, and the rest was going to be bought and operated by an outside company.  This will bring back stability (both economically and employment) within a key industry in Russia while also forming better ties with the West.

This is just a brief glimpse of what Putin is up against.  Knock him all you want, but just know that there is no one on this forum that can currently do a better job than he at the moment.

[MODU]

Richard M. Nixon, I've got a question for you: https://uselectionatlas.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=10622.0

That was more relavant on the Kerry Salute thread, not this one.