Aside from winning the Olympics, Russia has made a series of internal and foreign policy blunders within the last couple of months. I think it's showing to a lot of people around the world that Russia is not the "good alternative" to buddying up to the U.S. Russia may talk smack about U.S. war crimes and acts of terrorism, but at the end of the day, they do the exact same thing, just to different countries. So let's go through the list of recent Russian DANG FLABBITs, shall we?
1. Picking the wrong side in the Ukraine revolution.
Yep, they just bet on the wrong horse on this one. From the beginning, the Russian government supported the now deposed "President" of Ukraine, Viktor Yanukovych. They did this because they wanted to keep their "special" relationship to Yanukovych's government. They could not tolerate even the mere chance that someone else that could run the government would not give them all the same benefits that Yanukovych did. The Russians went about the narration of the conflict with their usual pathetically weak propaganda: that the anti-government protesters were just a bunch of "Nazi pro-Western stooges." (I'm not making this up, Google it. You can't get any better than this. WHO KNEW that Ukraine had a bunch of people that are Nazis yet love the countries that defeated the Nazis, right? RIGHT?!).
The Russians continuously backed their story that the Ukrainian "security" forces had the right to use violence against the protesters. Figures, considering they're fascist bastards. And when the evidence kept and keeps pouring and pouring in that the police were shooting unarmed people, kidnapping people out of their homes in the dead of night, torturing them, beating them, etc, etc, the Russians just had no answer for all that. They fumbled furiously for a coherent rebuttal in their state narrative, but it was hollow and thin. Everyone could see it was just complete and utter bullshit. Now Putin, even with his comrades' gold Olympic medals, is avoiding the spotlight. He's just hoping people forget the whole thing and leave him alone to hunt bears in the wilderness without a shirt on.
2. Oppressing gay Russians.
Who thought that in today's political climate was it a good idea to persecute gays? Let me be clear: It's never a good idea to do so. But doing so today, with the recent gains gays have made in equality in the U.S., and the media spotlight already in Russia because of the Olympics, is extra damaging to the Russian image. Russian gays are fleeing the country in droves because they can't stand life there.
Some examples of Russian oppression against gays would be:
- denying gay couples the ability to adopt Russian-born children.
- allowing policemen to arrest anyone who is "suspected of being gay" and detain them for up to two weeks.
- Saying anything in defense of gays is considered "pornography."
- Taking away children from their parents if the parents are suspected of being gay, http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/22/opinion/russias-anti-gay-crackdown.html?_r=0
- Denying parade/march requests from organizations suspected of asking for equality for gays.
- Calling homosexuality the same as pedophilia, http://www.policymic.com/articles/58649/russia-s-anti-gay-law-spelled-out-in-plain-english
Even if you don't like Pussy Riot's goals and/or tactics, having policemen whip unarmed women in the streets for everyone to watch is a really fucking dumb thing to do, http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/russia/10649037/Pussy-Riot-attacked-with-whips-by-police-at-Sochi.html
Pussy Riot is a very widely known band/advocacy group. Again, with dozens of cameras rolling on them because they were performing in Sochi, it's only going to lower Russia's image around the world to publicly whip them, detain them for several hours, and then let them go because they didn't do anything wrong. This only strengthens the narrative that Russia is ruthless in repressing any criticism. They have made some gains since they were the Soviet Union, but not by much it seems.
4. Picking the wrong side in the Syrian revolution.
Russia has been the lifeline for the Syrian government during their attempt to squash the revolution. Sure, Hezbollah and Iran have sent men to Syria to fight the rebels, but Russia has poured and poured vast amounts of Soviet era weapons to Bashar Assad. Without the seemingly endless supply of Russian weapons, there would be no way that Assad could keep up the amount of bombardments that he has been dishing out for years now.
But what makes Assad the wrong choice in the revolution? Well, I could write a whole paper on that, so I'll give you the short version. Assad was not elected to power; he inherited the throne from his daddy. So that makes him an illegitimate ruler, because the people did not elect him to power. Therefore, the Syrian people have the right to use force against him since he did not hold free and fair elections. It doesn't matter if there are some radical rebel elements in the many groups fighting against Assad. That doesn't take away the Syrian peoples' right to use force against Assad.
Back in 2011, the Syrian people peacefully asked for free and fair elections. And what did Assad do? He sent his soldiers in, and they shot and killed thousands of them, they kidnapped others from their homes, tortured them, maimed them, raped them, and mutilated them. He took away their right to assemble, their right to speech, their right to choose what government rules them, their right to bear arms, right to free press, right to petition their government, right not to have soldiers in their houses, right to be secure, etc, the list just goes on and on. I mean, this guy is just fucking sick. You are fucking sick if you can see all the horrible thing Assad has done to his people and still support this dude.
Yes, the radical rebels are bad, but Assad's crimes are 10 times worse. He has more power, so he has more opportunity to deal damage. Anything the radical rebels have done bad, Assad has already done 10 times as bad. The radical rebels have caused pain and chaos for 3 years; The Assad regime has caused pain and suffering for more than 4 decades. The Syrian people deserve the right to govern themselves. Nothing can change that fact. If they gotta beat Assad, the radical rebels, Iran, and Hezbollah, then so be it.
So yeah, that's why the Russian government, (not the Russian people), and specifically Vladmir Putin, completely suck dick.
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