Author: old_wp_importer

Everything going on in Russia these past few days is making me want to hit things.

Most of you have probably noticed that Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya was murdered on Saturday. There was no love lost between her and Putin (half the Russian conspiracy theorists think she was killed as a birthday present for Putin). Putin said nothing about her death until today, when he came out with this charming comment

“

There may have been any number of motives. Yes, this journalist was a sharp critic of the current Russian authorities. But I think that journalists should know, and experts perfectly understand, that her capacity to influence political life in Russia was extremely insignificant.

“She was well-known in journalist circles, in human rights circles, in the West. I repeat, her influence on the political life of the country was minimal.

”

Grr!

Meanwhile the persecution of Georgians in Russia is reaching tragicomin heights – now even the web hosts are getting involved. One,

Garanthost

. is closing down the accounts (RUS) of Georgian customers, and refusing to serve Georgians. And on the other side of the fence, Hostovik is offering discount hosting for anybody who will display an “I am Georgian” logo on their site.

No, I don’t know whether to laugh or cry either. I’m putting up more stuff about Russia and Georgia over at

the other place

.

Eep! The US is beginning a ‘major operation’ in Kirkuk. Not the kind of place you want Americans blindly wading in.

In Kirkuk, a volatile mixed city in the north, Iraqi and U.S.-led forces launched a major security operation, dubbed “the key to peace,” to root out members of al-Qaeda and other Sunni Arab insurgent groups. Authorities imposed a 6 p.m. curfew and announced the detention of 155 suspected insurgents. (Washington Post)

I hope they know what they’re doing; in particular I’d be worrying about the background of the Iraqi troops, the demographics of who they’re arresting, and generally how much they’re shaking things up

Another quick note on the persecution of Georgians in Russia.

One thing making it easy for the authorities to go after ethnic Georgians is that, like everbody else in Russia, most of them break the law in one way or another. It seems that almost everything is slightly illegal there – not illegal enough that you expect to get arrested for it, but enough that the police can go after you if they want to. So for example, they can inspect Georgian restaurants and find they all fail to meet some health requirement. Or they can audit the taxes of prominent Georgians, and find that they’re bending the rules. Because that’s what everybody does.

It’s just another spin on the old truth that the more laws you pass, the more corruption you get.

Wha? Russian blogs and media are reporting that Anna Politkovskaia has just been killed. She is – was – one of the most impressive campaigning journalists around, with some very brave investigations into Chechnya and into Russia under Putin.

Ah, the joy of Babelfish. It has got over its old habit of turning _Putin_ into _Fishings_, but has a great new trick of interpreting _Первый канал_ (Channel One) as “Pervy Channel”

Russian livejournal-users are talking non-stop about the spat with Georgia mentioned below. [Plushev](http://plushev.livejournal.com) has a heartwarming [roundup](http://plushev.livejournal.com/1209051.html#cutid1) of what people are saying.

[Cook](http://cook.livejournal.com) wants to make badges with the slogan “I am Georgian”, and [Antoshkin](http://antoshkin.livejournal.com/) has a template for a banner saying “I love you, Georgia!”.

A protest is being planned this Sunday in Pushkin square in central Moscow, “_against the kindling of hostility againstGeorgia, and against discrimination against Georgian citizens and citizens of Georgian origin_”

I’ll try to translate more of this, because it is inspiring stuff. Unfortunately it’ll have to wait until tomorrow :(.

Until then, thanks to Livejournal, and to the Russian LJ-users!

From the comments of an Abu Aardvark post: “_Subjectively speaking, I think we (the US) had a lot more respect for the Soviet Union than we do for Islamists and their allies_”

This rings true. I can’t work out what it proves, but I’d love to be able to. I would have expected al-Qaeda to get a lot of respect, through being caricatured as an comic-book evil genius. Instead, it seems the stereotype has stuck to evil, without any of the genius.

Why? Do the powers that be have less respect for non-state actors? Is it because nobody reads Arabic, so we can’t understand their cunning plans? Have we got so hung up on the ‘they hate us because we’re free’ angle that we’re blind to the Cunning Plans they do have? Is it objectively true that the leaders of al-Qaeda are less cunning than the old men in the Kremlin?

And what are the consequences of this different stereotype on how the USA (and Britain, by extension) behave?

Also: yes, I know I’m posting a ridiculous amount today. I had one of those moments where I did a word count on my ‘notes too shoddy to put anywhere’, and decided that 400,000 words of notes kept to myself is utterly useless. I apologise to my lone reader for inflicting all this on you – I still have a vague hope that one day I’ll find the right balance between hoarding information and inflicting all my crap on people.

Quick news from Hungary: the Prime Minister is keeping his job. There are protests going on outside Parliament at the moment: I’ll waddle over in an hour or two, but judging by Sunday it’s unlikely to amount to much.

The next date for things to happen is Revolution Day in a fortnight’s time.

Just as al-Qaeda (*) love prolonging the war in Iraq, so they must be overjoyed every time Blair or (usually) Bush go on some belligerent, over the top rant about Iraq. Then, it becomes so much easier for them to paint as evil megalomaniacs.

So, whenever Bush ramps up the rhetoric about Iraq, what he’s doing is putting domestic party politics above the fight against al-Qaeda(*). In other words, helping his country’s enemies to score a few political points.

Yes, this point has doubtless been made better elsewhere. But obviously it still hasn’t got through.

* no, I’m not happy boiling ‘The Enemy’ down to one sinister cartoon organization. Nor do I much like world politics being a ‘fight’ against anybody – but it’ll do.

It is hard to resist the temptation to scream at the Iraqi government to get on with doing something. But Condeleezza Rice is going a bit far telling them:

“They don’t have time for endless debate of these issues, They have really got to move forward.”

. In other words, stop worrying about all this democracy business.