Fragments of a blog
Fragments of a blog
The more I read about the history of Hatay, Turkey’s appendage-like province disputed by Syria, the more I am convinced that its status remains a sore point for Ankara. Also, Turkey’s military is in solidarity with Erdogan on the need to…
Looking at the map showing the routes of the Russian bomber and its Turkish pursuers, I noticed that the Turkish planes appeared to have taken off from somewhere close to Musa Dagh, where a small group of Armenians resisted Ottoman…
Freedom of speech: NTV to abandon three more political programs. OECD warns Russia is becoming a Latin American boom-and-bust economy. Europe’s Brown Spring (in Russian). The article argues that European opinion makers have been focusing in the past few years…
Gabriel Syme writes in Poor man’s Stalin: Saddam Hussain is of the same breed as the monstrous Josef Dzhugashvili – a powerful, resilient, personally courageous, charismatic, megalomaniac and psychopathic dictator. While comparing Bush to Hitler is plain stupid, comparing Hussein…
…The news is not only that Heydar Aliyev has died, but that none other than Saddam Hussein has been captured. Good job! The only problem with capturing them alive is the need to arrange some sort of trial; the problem…
Suppose you’re a member of a racial, ethnic or religious group, and this fact is obvious to a stranger. You could put a high priority on your membership and make it a factor in your decision-making. Or you could view…
Let me digress from the gallant loser thread. I promise to continue with it later. Let’s move over to policing Iraq. I’m ready to admit that Americans did a great job kicking Saddam’s ass. But the US Army seems to…
As everyone should know by now, transition from an institutionally entrenched dictatorship to a pluralistic society almost always involves a period of lawlessness, chaos and public unrest. Post-war Germany and Japan are exceptions. Apparently, Allied occupation administration did its job…
There may be a dozen dozens of reasons why Putin kept supporting Iraq and let Russian secret services spy for Saddam. Stupidity is out of question. His ignorance of the goings-on may be one. He was once a relatively low-level…
(Continued) The Nazis’ looting of private art collections from Jewish families was not only mercenary but aimed at destroying a people by robbing it of its culture. Just by robbing them – no need to bring up culture – just…
What the heck is going on in Baghdad? Is the war over or not yet? A great number of Russians don’t seem to believe CNN coverage because they mistrust US government and media as much as they mistrust their own.…
It’s easier to defend American interests that promote American values. US politicians tend to pretend they are engaged in the latter when their actions are but the former. Too bad. US Army’s “setbacks” in Iraq seem setbacks only against the…