Democracy in Russia

[RawMaterials]

SUBJECT: Democracy in Russia

I would like to draw your attention to the following testimony of Bruce P. Jackson, President of the Project on Transitional Democracies and a director of the Project for the New American Century, before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. In his testimony, Mr. Jackson details the "rapid deterioration of democracy in Russia over the past 24 months, the cause of this deterioration, and the significant dangers Russian policy now poses for the United States, its European allies and friends."

Examples of Moscow's dodgy behavior over the past month alone include: attempts to sell arms to Syria and Chavez's Venezuela, and pressuring Kyrgyzstan into saying no to NATO and American requests to deploy an AWACs surveillance aircraft.

In retrospect, we now recognize that the arrest of Mikhail Khodorkovsky on October 25, 2003 by heavily armed, special forces troops was the watershed event in the deterioration of democracy in Russia. Prior to this arrest, the soft suppression of democratic forces appeared to some as a manifestation of Moscow's historic political insecurity and an understandable effort to "manage" democracy and ameliorate the excesses of, and societal stress from, the Yeltsin era. Subsequent to October 2003, it became apparent that what President Putin had undertaken was a comprehensive crackdown on each and every perceived rival to state power and the re-imposition of the traditional Russian state, autocratic at home and imperial abroad.
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However, if we focus only on the animus President Putin has towards Mr. Khodorkovksy and the resultant "show trials" of Yukos executives, we risk missing the breadth of the crackdown on democratic forces and risk failing to see the logic of authoritarian and possibly even dictatorial power behind the events in Russia over the past two years.

Let me contrast the situation in Russia with the positive developments in Georgia during the Rose Revolution in November 2003 and in Ukraine during the Orange Revolution of December 2004. Democratic leaders in CIS countries and outside analysts have paid considerable attention to the attributes of Georgian and Ukrainian society that allowed their respective transitions to peacefully sweep away autocratic regimes despite their total control of the hard power of the security services and military forces.

http://www.newamericancentury.org/russia-20050217.htm

more much more must read

[Dirk39]

1. I don't get the New American Century...

selling arms to Chavez's Venezuela? Arresting Mikhail Khodorkovsky?

These are the only two thinks, I can think of, that are "democratic" in Putin's Russia.

Soro's private and stagged "Rose Revolution" in Georgia might be as funny as the free elections in Iraq. Now it's getting orange lately. It' s just so dark.
In the Ukraine, people could at least chose between corrupt politicians bought by Putin, and even more corrupt politicians, bought by Soros, the US and Europe. That's the freeeee market.

God in Heaven: let us peacefully sweep away autocratic regimes. Let us get rid of Bush, Soros, Putin and their comrades.

Hello from Germany,
Dirk

[OKNancy]

2. PNAC

You do realize that this group has an agenda, mainly backing up the neo-cons in the Bush administration? ( Of course there are those IN the Bush administration as well)