Uncle_Vanya
Гражданин СССР
Now I've been browsing American news articles left wing and right wing and read a bundle of them about the Russo-American relations now that Obama is in office. I personally believe that Obama won't change a thing as far as US foreign policy is concerned (or the US domestic policy is concerned) so the current level of tension between our two countries is likely to stay at the same level (which I and the rest of us can live with since its still far away from a worldwide nukefest) but some of the suggestions that both liberal and neocon press in US is making, those have me annoyed. How the hell do you people get off being so self-righteous? How many wars have you started in the past 20 years and how many have we started? What gives you the right to judge our actions and to question the correlation between the interests of our government and the interests of our people? We elected this government and yes most of us support this government, we don't like Kasparov, not because he isn't getting his message out but because he does get his message out and his message is equivalent to treason. As for our actions we WILL do what is in our national interests and we WILL not ever become an obedient member of your personal fan club (aka the "free world"). A lot of your intellectual elite talks about how you have morals and principles that you have the right to push on other people, but in reality those morals and principles are worthless to everyone, including you since you don't uphold them. What pisses me off most of all is that these people think that the West can decide what is and isn't in the interest of Russia's people, we are a sovereign nation, we do not want to be a part of the West Putin or no Putin, hell if Putin expressed a desire for Russia to join NATO he'd be buried in Lenin's mausoleum the next day, we the Russian people would make sure of it. We don't need US or Europe to lead us anywhere (as European leaders admitted many times that they want to see US lead them somewhere), we are our own nation, with our own values, our own culture and we will resist to the point of nuclear conflict any attempts of infringing upon our sovereignty. We are not Europe, we do not owe you anything, Yeltsin was the first and last leader in our history that reported to Washington DC and he shall be remembered as a traitor forever. I don't like some of the things that this Putin and Co. is doing, but realizing the bigger threat to our nation coming from the West we can not afford to weaken or destabilize our nation on its road to recovery even if it means that we have to overlook certain things in our government we otherwise wouldn't have. Russian mentality as a status quo is always a nation at war (and historically it saved our asses more than once) unless there is enough reason to believe that peace can be maintained and if we are at war each and every one of us is at war, difference of opinion is weakness and is not tolerated by our culture and upbringing. If you want to solve the Middle East crisis, if you want to remove the threat of rising China, if you want to prevent nuclear proliferation, then lets talk, as equal partners, not based on some abstract morals and principles that aren't worth a dime but based on pragmatic realities of today. In some places our interests correlate, in others compromises can be reached if your side, like our own, is ready to give up a certain measure of the spoils in order to achieve stability. We can achieve a whole lot working together, but if you look down on us, and isolate us we can be not just a thorn in your side, but a bear tearing at your throat, its all up to you.