Why the American media are so pathologically anti-Russian

[The Vagabond]

Originally posted by Saras

There is a difference between Exxon and Lockheed which you unfortunately failed to notice I think it'd be fine and dandy as far as US Government is concerned if Rosneft wanted to buy Exxon. Or Goldman Sachs. Or Citicorp.

I saw the difference. That's why I asked you about Exxon. Thanks for your opinion. Nonetheless, my gut feeling on the matter is quite different.

As long as they play fair, ie, no Russian-style tricks such as competitor killings, dodging taxes etc

Very funny.

Its not that I was insulted, its more of a "man, YOU call me naive and then advocate limiting sales of "strategic" assets to Kremlin cronies in the name of NATIONAL SECURITY?"

Better Putin's cronies than putting national security in jeopardy.

It would be more difficult to deal with them in the times of crisis. Besides, they are less likely to reinvest inside the country. In addition, it is the sacrosanct natural resourses we are talking about after all.

What crisis? If they start operating these companies in a way that serioysly undermines your national security (i.e., running a spy ring or something), you just nationalise them. Eminent domain, man.

Nationalize?? This will only give them a pretext for invasion: to protect American property. No, thanks. It's wiser to nip the issue in the bud.

In other words, just a regime of maximum favoritism from the West in all possible respects.

I'd beg to differ. We have a witholding tax, a blatant violation of the principles on which EU was founded.

OK, not in all possible respects perhaps. But you have to recognize that, compared to Russia, you received quite a dose of favoritism.

Russia is a different story, as I have already explained.

How is it different? How can teh evil west enslave mother Russia by buying her assets?

Lithuania is already enslaved, no matter who owns assets there. Russia still cherishes the hope for protracted sovereignty. Don't you think that e.g. owning an oil company providing 10% of the budget gives one too much of a leverage?

[Heresson]

Originally posted by The Vagabond


Russia was not forgiven any part of the debt (some part was only restructured). Poland was, and it was a huge part. You just fail to enlighten us on the matter.

I believe it is different.

You are very unthankful.

Yes, your ministry of foreign affairs accused us with that we're complaining about Jalta treaty, which was, according to your ministry, just marvelous to Poland - after all, Poland received enlargement of territory in the west and was "guaranteed freedom, also by USSR".
That Poland lost its eastern half and the talk about the freedom was a masque of vassalisation, your ministry does not seem to remember.

And now all Serbs are expelled from Kosovo under NATO's watchful care.

That's not true.

Agression in violation of the UN charter. Attacking our informal ally, despite others bahaved equally bad. In spite of our objections.

WHo acted equally bad? Albanians only now have a possibility of acting "equally bad"
And if You're chosing villains as your allies, well, don't be suprised.

Whatever it was, whatever explanation you can provide, the naked fact is that the visa wall came closer to Russia. It is the result that matters.

Was it directed against Russia?
Was it possible to avoid it?
Aren't Russians given faciliations?
Is Russia going to fall because of it?
We pay visas to Russia as well - just more expensive.

Russia's interests there are more vital than the others'.

And who claims so? Russia?
And even if so, why should anyone care about it by Russia itself? That no-one's willing to give ultra special treatment to Russian interests it's not discrimination

And I wish it was recognized a 'free game' by the West, so that the Ukrainian people could hear.

It was not a free game?

In any event, my point here was just that all this puts a huge additional strain over Russia, a strain that Poland has the luxury not to have.

Do You thin no-one has problems but Russia?

Great. But it remains a fact that the EU admitted, against its own principles, countries committing blatant violations of human rights.

What are these blatant violations?

They were already living there. It's a human right violation to deny them citizenship on any grounds. Newcomers, on the other hand, should be required to pass the language exam for citizenship indeed.

A question, I honestly don't know: did people under USSR have a citizenship of USSR only, or were You also assigned to a specific republic?
If the first answer is correct, You may be right, though I understand them: they were annexed by Moscow and when they are set free, they have a quater of Russian population that does not even know the state language.

I'd love to see the same level of vilification in the Western press towards Poland. The problem is I don't see any.

I assure You there is. In tv relations, it's a tradition to show images from the poorest eastern villages and beggars - bah, in Sweden they were still using materials from the 70's as once was discovered.
Poland was being called "Troian horse" or even "Troian donkey" of America in Europe and is being badmouthed by even influential magazines. And You could only imagine the rage after Poland decided to defend its rights given in Nice treaty.

[Dinner]

Originally posted by The Vagabond
2) Oerdin's examples are not related to the natural resources.

Chilean companies own the three largest copper mines in the US, a South African company owns the only diamond mine in the US, BP owns half of the Trans-Alaska Pipeline, Saudi Aramco owns the largest oil field in California (dispite the fact it is illegal for foreigners to own oil fields in Saudi Arabia), the Chinese have bought huge tracks of forest in the US to feed their nation's desire for wood and paper.

The US lets them as long as 1) they follow American laws 2) they pay their taxes on time 3) don't engage in anti-competitive practices. True, natural resources production is a tiny fraction of the total economy (dispite the fact that by volume the US produces is about the same natural resource wise as Russia) but this is because for 230 years the government has followed a policy to promote private enterprise. If Russia follows the basics (i.e. protects private property from theft, the rule of law, equality before the law, no cronism, free and open competition) then in time Russia will become an economic titan just as the US and Japan have done and how China is now doing.

If the Russian government would stop the knee jerk nationalism and instead tried to behaive like the rest of Europe then Russia would likely find itself in a position similiar to China. Russia could sign trade agreements with the EU like Turkey has and then use its large population and lower production costs to attract much of the manufacturers of Europe. There'd be jobs for most people, far more money in the economy, and the Russian state would get more taxes then ever. To bad Putin has decided to go with an old and failed route instead.

[muxec]

Russian media: "Chechen terrorists are rebels and terrorists. Other people, who perform mass murders to achieve their religious or political goals are freedom fighters"

[The Vagabond]

Originally posted by Oerdin


Strictly speaking this is incorrect. When NATO won the air war and Slobo agreed to move Yugoslav military forces out of Kosovo the Yugoslav media went into a feeding frenzy. Every Serb TV, newspaper, radio show in the country claimed Albanians were going to massacre Serbs and that NATO hated Serbs & so would not protect them.

The media!! It's quite ironic that you mention it in this particular thread. You can see for yourself what damage a media campaign can inflict.

The result? 90% of the Serb population left before NATO troops even arrived.

But Serbian troops had to leave before NATO troops arrived. So the Serb population was left on the Albanian mercy for quite a while. But th arrival of NATO troops didn't help much.

Once these refugees (if you can realy call them that) arrived in the richer parts of Serbia they didn't really want to go back. If you were living in the poorest, least devoloped, and most densely populated part of a country why go back after moving to the richest part?

The economy sucks in Kosovo but people still get by and if those Serbs wanted to come back the security situation isn't to bad. Other then the odd flair up things since 1999 have been pretty smooth but still those people don't come back. It seems they've found a place they like better.

What you say can be true only if it was just some part of the refugees that eventually didn't return. But all of them?? Come on, there must also be another reason for their failure to return. The refugees left their property behind, the place where they had lived all their life. Graves of their ancestors remained their after all. Don't you see that there must also be some other explanation, in addition to what you said?

[The Vagabond]

OK, guys, I have to go now. Reply to you later.

[Saras]

Lithuania is already enslaved, no matter who owns assets there. Russia still cherishes the hope for protracted sovereignty. Don't you think that e.g. owning an oil company providing 10% of the budget gives one too much of a leverage?

Well Yukos controls Mazeikiu Nafta, which generates ~20% of our budget revenues. Ask me if I care

[Serb]

Originally posted by Heresson
And if Russia tried hard enough, it could be a member of NATO, EU or anything it wished.

Congratulations Heresson, you just have won my super prize for a super idoit of 2005 - welcome to my ignore list!

[Serb]

Originally posted by Oerdin
Serb, why weren't foreign companies allowed to bid on Yukos?

Because, iirc we have a law which forbids foreign companies from owning a controlling stock of such a strategic companies as this one. Why should I exaplain what protectionism is to you? I though its an American invention.

[Serb]

Originally posted by Saras


Hey relax with this:

I liked your story about USS Whatever and its dumbass captain, much more.
Ìîæíî èíå èíòåãðèðîâàòü åå â ïðîäîëæåíèå ìîåãî ÀÀÐ'a ïî Hearts of Iron? Êñòàòè òû ÷èòàë ìîå òâîðåíèå? Vagabond, à òû ÷èòàë? Åñëè íå ÷èòàëè, òî âàì íà:

http://www.snowball.ru/forums/?board=life&action=view&id=150195

ïðîäîëæåíèå:

http://www.snowball.ru/forums/?board=life&action=view&id=150201

http://www.snowball.ru/forums/?board=life&action=view&id=151369

http://www.snowball.ru/forums/?board=life&action=view&id=151754

http://www.snowball.ru/forums/?board=life&action=view&id=176645

Íó òàê êàê? Ìîæíî ìíå ýòó èñòîðèþ ïîþçàòü? Ïëèç, ïëèç, òðèæäû ïëèç, Saras (îáåùàþ çàìåíèòü àìåðèàêíñêîãî êàïèòàíà íà íåìåöêîãî, ïîñêîëüêó ñ àìåðèêàíöàìè ÿ ïîêà íå âîþþ).

[Dinner]

Vagabond, you do have a point that very few Serb refugees have come back to Kosovo. That is a real problem.

[Serb]

Why they didn't? Perhaps because your belowed Albainan brothers slauther them on their own holy ground? Kosovo is the Serbian land, it's thier core land, the heart of Serbia. Now being Serbian and be there means you'll be dead soon. Silly Serbs, they do not want to be killed by US-backed enlighten Muslilm Albanians (pro-western and pro-democratic and liberal as usuall, of course)
Thank you very much, for you ****ing bombs.

[Serb]

Originally posted by lord of the mark
Russian Newspaper Issues Wry Retraction
Edition Is a Protest Against Court Ruling

By... pet of Berezovsky

Complete sh!t.
I especially enjoyed this part:
"An appeals court ruled last month that the newspaper, which is owned by the exiled tycoon Boris Berezovsky, a political enemy of Putin's, had damaged the bank's reputation".

This ****er is WANTED here for his crimes, not EXILED.

[Serb]

Originally posted by Oerdin
That paper got what it deserved for starting a bank run. Papers need to be reasonably sure of things before they print it...

Finally some words of wisdom here.

...but the Russian government does seem to have a habit of enforcing rules on political enemies and ignoring the rules for most other people.

However, this is complete bullsh!t. What Russian government? The case was initiated by bank whose reputetion suffered, because of this article.
If you'll publish some BS in you Castle Rock Tribune or whatever and then the person who did suffer because of your obvious BS would bring you into court and win the case, does it mean it was the fault of US government?

[Serb]

Originally posted by Heresson


No, like 75% in entire Cieszyn region, more in the part Poland's taken. Polish majority was even visible on Czech maps.

Whatever. Lands taken by USSR in 1939 were populted by Ukranians and Byelorussians (I'm talking about 90+ percents figures here) and these were the lands captured by Poland in 1921.
In case of Poland, you justify such actions, in case of USSR you condemn them, despite Poland was the first who started it.

Do You think it was done intentionally by Gorbaczow?
And c-mon, listen to yourself...

Sure, Gorbachev is the traitor and he has no idea about histrory. His "histroric mission" was to destroy the USSR. And this ****** fullfiled his mission. Why should I (or anyone else) trust to incompetent traitor in matters where his goal was to lie as much as he could to make USSR look worse as possible?
I trust Gorbachev no more than I trust Dr. Goebels, because they are speaking the same.