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| Hearsay: |
In Russia, pen writes you! But seriously. Putin and/or his allied assassins will kill you if you speak against them. Here in the lands of George W. Bush (the less charismatic, one-eight-as-intelligent, noodly-armed, faux-cowboy-toughguy, combat-duty-avoiding, non-Judo-ass-kicking Putin) we just ruin your life economically, socially, and ensure you never work in a national market again.
Since Russia enshrined freedom of speech as a constitutional right in 1993, a total of 152 journalists have been murdered there. A database set up this month by two media monitoring organisations, the Glasnost Defense Foundation and the Center for Journalism in Extreme Situations, sets out the details of each case. Yelena Tregubova is trying hard not to be the 153rd.
“I am not going to keep silent, because if I do, they will kill me silently,” Tregubova declares. “I am in a privileged position because I can speak freely. Many of the colleagues I left behind in Moscow think as I do about what is happening, but they can’t speak up. I don’t have nuclear weapons, I don’t have an organisation like the KGB behind me. Journalism is my only weapon.”
But forget about oil-less places like Russia and North Korea. We need to concentrate on the smoldering rubble heaps we’ve invested so much in — Iraq and Afganistan (the war that everyone except Canada has forgotten about). See, what we’re fighting here isn’t nuclear ambition and totalitarianism anymore. That’s so 1982. That’s so Reagan. What we fighting is a war to ensure the wealthy get wealthier and the rest of the world remains oppressed by Western consumerism. So its perfectly fine for Russia and NK to go about their business of rattling sabres while eroding what freedoms reamain, assassinating opposition and quietly aiming weapons at the rest of the world. So long as the oil money keeps flowing. There. That oughtta draw out a few of the crazies in the comments.
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June 26th, 2007 at 10:28 am
There is hardly any oil in Afghanistan. There is oil in Iraq. There is a massive fuck of a lot of oil in Russia.
June 26th, 2007 at 12:05 pm
Roland is right.
It’s apples and oranges. Lumping the American invasion of Iraq in with Afghanistan, as though they are are the same conflict is simple-minded. (Ironically, right-wing pundits do the same thing,
trying to lump them together as “war on terror” etc. The left shouldn’t do the same thing.)
Regardless of your stance — and whether you support the fight against the Taliban or not — you have to get your facts straight. Afghanistan is not about oil. Maybe we should pull out. Maybe we should let the Taliban regain power. I honestly don’t know.
But from the original Soviet invasion to covert US support for the Taliban to the brutal suppresion of women under that regime to Al Qaeda and 911, it is a tragic story. But it’s not about oil.
June 26th, 2007 at 12:34 pm
The last bit of my message was cut off:
Afghanistan was not invaded to secure oil fields. (Also, as an aside, Afghanistan is not an Arab country either; it’s amazing how many people confuse it with Iran, Iraq, etc.)
What is happening in Afghanistan is the final act in a Cold War powerplay, mixed with tribal customs, abject poverty and religious fundamentalism. It is not ONLY about poverty (as the left would have it) nor is it ONLY about religious fanaticism (as the right would argue). Remember as well, that the Taliban was imported. They used the Afghans to further their own ultra-orthodox agenda.
This is not Iraq. (And I agree about N. Korea, by the way. If we are going to start toppling madmen, let’s start there shall we? Maybe we can convince the US that there are oil reserves over there . . .)
It just bothers me when I hear people blithely inflate Iraq and Afghanistan. There was a reason
Jean Chretien and the Liberals opposed Iraq, but supported the action in Afghanistan. (We forget that Afghanistan is not Harper’s war.)
June 26th, 2007 at 8:17 pm
Russia is the largest non-OPEC oil producer, I believe. And a large part of the reason why Putin can get away with what he’s doing is all the money he’s getting from the high energy prices.
BTW, sven, Iran isn’t an Arab country either. In fact, I wouldn’t call an Iranian/Persian an Arab for love nor money; they INVENTED the term Aryan after all. But you’re right, a lot of people don’t have the first clue about the ethnic/linguistic complexities of that region; it’s all just Arabs and Arabic to them.
June 26th, 2007 at 10:28 pm
The words “Russia” and “Gazprom” are rapidly becoming synonyms.
June 26th, 2007 at 11:56 pm
Oops. Sloppy grammar on my part. I didn’t mean that Iran was Arab. Iranians are –proudly — Persian. (Just a read a book on poets and wrestlers in Iran and that point was strong.) What I was getting at was that Afghanistan is quite different from Iraq and Iran. Once again the proper use of the semi-colon has been my downfall.
June 27th, 2007 at 6:23 am
While I agree that the issues in Afghanistan are not primarily right now about oil, there is some indication that access (Unocal pipeline) did play into the political landscape. The Taliban was supported by oil interests.