Because American news is just too depressing

Russia -- "How the US needlessly alienates Russia," Daniel Larison, The Week

More Russia -- "Putin's Circus Lions are Hungry -- and Angry," Dmitriy Oreshkin, Moscow Times

America, Jr. -- "A Resolute Ally in the War on Terror," Mary A. O'Grady, WSJ


To be honest, only one of these articles is on here because I actually like it.

That, of course, would be the interview with Stephen Harper, Prime Minister of Canada. Harper's been making the rounds lately, to be sure. He was on The Kudlow Report last week, in addition to another interview he did on CNBC. Now this piece in the Journal. It's nice to see that there's still a fiscally conservative government left in the Western world. Granted, I think that saying "His objective would appear to be the restoration of liberal-democratic resolve against tyranny," is a little melodramatic. Still, when did anyone ever think that Canada would have a more conservative government than the States? Isn't that where all the blood-hungry Democrats said they would move in 2004 if Bush had won re-election? Ha, I wish they had, that would have been a delicious twist of fate given that Harper came to office in aught-6.

Also, let's not forget that when you're at your local gas station filling up on dinosaurs, they are more than likely to be of the Canadian variety.

On to other dinosaurs, we have the Oreshkin article. I had high hopes for it, since the title makes one wonder "Who are these 'circus lions?'" Sadly, the article doesn't answer that at all. Instead, the author regurgitates every stereotype ever spouted by the Western media. What did I learn from this article? Russia is still the Soviet Union, Putin is a modern-day Soviet Premier, and United Russia is the Communist Party. Thank you, Mr. Oreshkin, I could have learned the same things from Fox News. This is published in the Moscow Times, an English-language newspaper published in Russia. I think anyone reading it will already have a pretty good handle on these various platitudes.

In the final quarter of his paper, he finally mentions these "circus lions." Who are they? They are "the various elites surrounding [Putin]" of course. And who are they? We are left to wonder. I suppose Oreshkin may be reticent to get too specific, since he does not want to share the same fate as other prominent journalists who criticise the Russian government. Finally, he asserts that "We have already heard the first menacing roars from Putin's lions," without saying a single word about where these "roars" are coming from.

I just think that any person reading an English-language Russian newspaper would have the same questions that I do. He does, however, describe United Russia as "not as unified as Putin would like," which is interesting to me. He claims that one faction is loyal to Duma (House of Representatives) Speaker Boris Gryzlov and another one loyal to Yuri Luzhkov, the politically powerful mayor of Moscow. If he had made an article out of that, I certainly would have been interested since, at least from my perspective, we are routinely told that United Russia is a political behemoth with Putin as its one and only leader.

On to the Larison article. His basic premise is only somewhat correct. He cites the base closure in Kyrgyzstan as an example of how the US is screwing the pooch when it comes to Russia. Losing the Manas base, a crucial transit point for things going to Afghanistan, was a policy failure, to be sure. Essentially, Kyrgyzstan ended the US lease on the base after Russia dangled a $2b aid package in front of the government.

Anyway, the US supported the Tulip Revolution, in which the Soviet holdover president of Kyrgyzstan, Askar Akayev, was ousted much in the same manner as rulers in Ukraine and Georgia. This was misguided, he says with 20/20 hindsight, because it provoked Russia and the US did not get the kind of results it was seeking. I counter this by asking, based on the previous results of revolutions in the post-Soviet states, why should we have expected a failure in Kyrgyzstan? That aside, I think the argument has some salience. We allowed Kyrgyzstan to slide back into the Russian sphere by mishandling our relationship with them. I don't think his argument is about Kyrgyzstan, though, even if he cites it as an example. What he wants to do is criticise US policy generally towards Russia.

He neglects to mention that Russia has been just as provocative but in a very real way rather than geopolitics. Russia has resumed long-range bomber flights that had not occurred since the Cold War. Russian planes routinely violate US airspace, in addition to the airspace of our allies (check out the piece about Harper that I already discussed, maybe two-thirds of the way through). Russia clinched a deal with Kazakhstan to construct a pipeline over its territory, allowing it to have an even tighter grip on energy exports from the former Soviet sphere of influence. Russia provoked the US by engaging in joint naval exercises with certified asshat Hugo Chavez. All of this is passed over in this piece.

Yes, we muffed the Kyrgyzstan situation, but we had a reasonable expectation that the Tulip Revolution would turn out positively, based on Ukraine and Georgia. Furthermore, we are not simply beating on Russia for no reason. Russia has shown no desire to change anything since the Cold War, and so long as they continue to be "troublesome just to be troublesome," to quote Stephen Harper, we have to keep up the hard line.