From: MSN NicknameEagle_wng  (Original Message)    Sent: 3/15/2007 12:34 PM
 March 14, 2007
 
COMMENTARY: What’s Up with Russia?
 
By Tom Proebsting

Special to HNN
 
President Ronald Reagan, in a historic speech in Berlin in 1987 appealed to then-Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev with his famous line, “Mr. Gorbachev, open this gate! Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!”
 
The Berlin Wall came down. The gates were opened. East and West Germany reunited, Eastern Europe was set free from Communism, and the Soviet Union lost 14 states. Under the leadership of Boris Yeltsin, Russia sought Democratic reforms and life there looked rosy.
 
But in 1994 the autonomous Russian republic of Chechnya clamored so loudly and persistently for independence and sovereignty that Yeltsin, fearful of losing most of his other resource-rich republics, made an example of it. Russia sent its army into the tiny republic and leveled its capital, Grozny. But after two years, the Chechens turned the mighty Russian army away, its tail between its legs. The press hounded the president over the excessive use of force. Yeltsin sued Chechnya for peace. He founded the rule that if Chechnya can be controlled, so can the remainder of Russia. And control of Russia was vital.
 
By the election of 1996, with his ratings at rock-bottom, Yeltsin used the power of television to knock out his opponent and won the president’s office. By 1999, there was a two-sided battle for the control of parliament, which resulted in the compromise of Yeltsin anointing former KGB officer Vladimir Putin as president.
 
Later that year several apartment buildings in Moscow were blown up. Putin blamed the Chechen separatists for it. In the first of many fascist moves, President Putin took full control of the press by force and a second war with Chechnya started. Full censorship is still enforced on Russian TV -- all that is allowed is what will benefit the Kremlin. Putin was the second Russian president to make Chechnya an example to Russia’s 20 other republics. He saw Chechnya as the weakest chink in Russia’s armor, so he set about repairing it. During the second Chechen war, the Russian army used more ammo and bombs to subdue the insurgency than was used during the 1991 Gulf War.
 
Censorship is the rule throughout Russia. Since 1999, fourteen journalists have been murdered there. Ukraine president Viktor Yushchenko, an opponent of Putin, was poisoned and almost died when he was running for office in 2004. Two members of the Russian parliament have been assassinated. A banker who wanted to clean up Russia’s banking system was shot dead. A special forces officer, an opponent of pro-Russian Chechen president Kadyrov, was gunned down. A former KGB agent, Alexander Litvinenko, was poisoned by Polonium-210, a Russian-made nuclear substance.
 
It seems someone in the Kremlin wants to maintain their firm grip on power. The result is there is no free speech or free press in Russia today.
 
Many of the murdered journalists and other victims had opposed Putin’s corrupt government and economic tactics. And most of them had accused Putin of deliberately bombing the apartments in Moscow as an excuse to go to war with Chechnya a second time. But for Putin, the Chechen insurgency had to be stifled at all costs. As were his opponents.
 
Today, Russian TV’s main goal is to support Putin’s administration and its corporate interests. Putin seized control of Russia’s major energy companies, Gazprom and Rosneft, putting his friends and political allies in charge of them. Mikhail Khodorkovsky, president of Yukos, Russia’s largest oil company, criticized Putin. In response, Khodorkovsky was arrested, tried, imprisoned, and his company plundered by Putin. The proceeds went to Putin’s friends and the companies they run.
 
Putin has reversed many of Yeltsin’s democratic reforms. He has replaced them with a government-run economy, nationalization of key industries, severely restricted freedoms and rights, and kangaroo courts. But the people put up with such travesties because the high price of oil brings them more money.
 
Within the last year, Russia cut off gas supplies to Ukraine and Belarus when both countries objected to sharp increases in the price. Russia supplies roughly one-third of Europe’s natural gas and it is funneled through Ukraine, so when Putin applies such fascist tactics, it affects a lot of innocent people.
 
Despite Putin’s despotic style, most polls give him a 70% approval rating. What is important for citizens in Russia today is stability and Putin provides it. The Russians find fascism and prosperity easier to deal with than freedom and Democracy.
 
Putin has centralized his power by signing a bill which gives him the authority to nominate Russia’s 89 governors, thus doing away with gubernatorial elections. He also assumed the power to appoint the mayors of Moscow and St. Petersburg, ridding Russia of even more elections. Regional elections going on now in Russia show the fascist tactics of Putin. Most of Russia’s districts offer only one party to choose from -- the Kremlin-backed Russia Party. Many parties are banned from the elections. Signatures of voters supporting one particular opposition party, Yabloco, were declared invalid.
 
A true fascist nation is highly militarized, with the top brass taking a major role in running the country. Russia is not quite there as its citizen leaders control the military. And for now, Russia is substituting economic power for military power. Through bribery, they have taken over foreign energy companies having facilities within their borders. Russia may not yet be militaristic, but it has every other major quality of an emerging fascist nation.
 
However, Russia will never again be a world superpower.
 
* * * Tom Proebsting is a commentator living in Missouri. Comments may be directed to: http://www.truthprobe.com
http://www.huntingtonnews.net/columns/070314-proebsting-comment.html