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Getting to Know the Real Vladimir Putin

Filed under: Russia

Very often, you can learn all you need to about a person by knowing who his admirers are.

So if, for example, I were to tell you that both The Nation magazine, as extreme a left-wing partisan screed as exists in the U.S.A., and convicted criminal Lyndon LaRouche are both ga-ga over Vladimir Putin, you'd probably conclude that he's likely not the greatest thing since sliced bread, wouldn't you? And if they were both working together, little question would undoubtedly remain in your mind but that Vladimir Putin may well be the locus of evil in the modern world.

And that's the case. As James Kirchick points out in The New Republic's blog The Plank (full of links, click through to read them):

Robert Dreyfuss, a contributing editor to The Nation, has written a piece this week entitled "Hothead McCain." I wonder if Dreyfuss would use a similar descriptor for his longtime former employer, the convicted felon and political cult-leader Lyndon LaRouche. Though Dreyfuss officially left the employ of LaRouche (in the sense that he does not currently write for LaRouche's publications, at least not under his own byline), his politics clearly haven't changed much from the tinfoil hat variety characteristic of the 8-time fringe presidential candidate and conspiracy theorist. Dreyfuss still spends his days feverishly slumped over his keyboard warning of neocon conspiracies and shilling for authoritarian regimes--hallmarks of any good LaRouchite. Now, he just gets published in ostensibly respectable magazines like The Nation.

Dreyfuss's attacks on McCain for "drawing up plans for a new set of global institutions" are right out of the LaRouche playbook, which views international institutions as part of a grand, "satanic" conspiracy involving international banks, the Trilateral Commission, and the drug-running Queen Elizabeth II. Sound familiar? LaRouche, and his disciplies like Robert Dreyfuss, make Ron Paul seem sane. As such, Dreyfuss's fearmongering about McCain's plans for an "expanded NATO that will bump up against Russian interests in Central Asia and the Caucasus" is in line with LaRouche's own pro-Putin sympathies. That Russia is a wounded power, righteously lashing out at an expansionist and imperialist West has long been a rallying cry for the American far-right, which finds many things to admire in the ethno- nationalistic chauvinism of Vladimir Putin and, before him, Slobodan Milosevic. So why is this bunk appearing in The Nation? Which of Russia's "interests in Central Asia and the Caucasus" does Dreyfuss seek to defend? Its punishing violence in Chechnya? Its bullying of Georgia? Strange that a left-wing publication would shill for the quasi-fascist authoritarians now running Russia. Perhaps The Nation is reliving its enthusiasm for the Hitler-Stalin pact.

Dreyfuss mimics Pravda when he writes that McCain's proposal to expel Russia from the Group of Eight for its rigging elections, murdering journalists, poisoning dissenters and other myriad human rights abuses is a "flagrant and dangerous insult." He then rakes McCain over the coals for supporting Kosovo's declaration of independence and for backing American intervention to avert genocide in the Balkans. Again, that this man is given space in The Nation and The American Prospect (where he is a "Senior Correspondent") to spew apologetics for Vladimir Putin is perplexing. But perhaps it is expecting too much that a publication featuring a regular column by Eric "Let's make fun of Andrew Sullivan for being HIV-positive" Alterman would care about things like propriety or editorial integrity.

Previously over at my blog La Russophobe, we've pointed out that the editor of The Nation, Katrina vanden Heuvel, routinely publishes the senile Russophilic ravings of her husband Stephen Cohen, a professor of Russian politics at New York University.

Want to see who Vladimir Putin is in even more brutally frank terms? Click here.

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Comments


Vova says:

Well, the lukewarm-left New Republic found fault with the far-left Nation by linking them (by association) to off-the-left-wall Lyndon LaRouche who once tried to seize control of Communist Party USA (it was called then "Operation Mopup"). There's no surprise there: The lunatic fringe is where loony left merges with loony right, as evidenced by Pat Buchanan's association with Lenora Fulani. Suffice it to say that all three--LLR, PB, and LF--are pathological anti-Semites, and it's hard to tell whether they are on the far left or far right. So why should anyone be surprised that these kooky fascists like the malignant little troll, a kooky fascist himself?
The isolationist Buchanan to whom "the new world order" is an anathema--like to his buddy KGB Maj. Gen. Aleksey Ridiger aka "Patriarch Alexy II"--invokes International Law when Israel dares to defend herself and blames NATO and the Bush administration for "unnecessarily" provoking the Russians by advancing NATO installations to within 120 miles of St. Petersburg.
Capt. McCain will be our next president, and that's what matters. Whether Russia is in or out of G8 matters little. You can dress Putvedev in regal garments, put him on a throne, and supply him with orb and scepter, but Russia still will be a shithole of a cesspit for a long time to come


nice says:

Have you ever actually read any of Stephen Cohen's work, or did you just go to Wikipedia?

Also, he's not a professor of Russian politics, but a professor of Russian history. In fact, if you had any goddamn clue what you're talking about, you'd know that Cohen is a historian (Kim, in English, 'historian' is a noun used to describe someone that studies history for a living)

Failed Crusade is a hell of a lot more important for understanding Russia today than anything you (or Edward Lucas) have ever written.


La Russophobe says:

Have you ever actually read the link to my blog's critique of Professor Cohen before spewing out your nonsense, you pathetic hypocrite?

If he's a professor of history only, then why does he comment about current events, you simpleton? If he confined himself to telling us about the significance of Katherine I, we'd be happy to ignore him.


yup says:

"If he's a professor of history only, then why does he comment about current events, you simpleton?"

Um, because he wants to and, last I checked, we still have freedom of speech in this country? Should he restrain himself to only speaking about that which he is 'qualified' to? I thought you had a philosophical problem with that based on the following:

"She speaks Russian and has lived in Russia; her analysis is based on personal experience at ground zero, she does not claim academic or professional credentials as an "expert." Indeed, she believes that for too many years excessive reliance on such "experts" has led American policy far astray where Russia is concerned, much to the detriment of the Russian people as well."

That's your founding creed, Kim. Are you always this hypocritical, or is today a particularly bad day?


Vova says:

"She speaks Russian and has lived in Russia; her analysis is based on personal experience at ground zero, she does not claim academic or professional credentials as an "expert." Indeed, she believes that for too many years excessive reliance on such "experts" has led American policy far astray where Russia is concerned, much to the detriment of the Russian people as well."
This is exactly how it is. A couple of retired contractors who are fluent and have first-hand knowledge know more between them that all of CIA and NSC combined. And I don't even mention the State Dep't. I wish I could supply names but I can't






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