It's gone so far that Russia has closed down the British Council offices in Russia. It was Britain who started it - over the execution in England of a Russian spy who'd switched to work for the UK. He was a dreadful individual - a traitor to his country and a homosexual - like so many people attracted to this kind of sneaky, dirty work. Britain refused to extradite him to Russia and made a ridiculous fuss, accusing Russia of great wickedness in doing the only thing left to them by Britain's intransigence. Of course it served their policy well of sucking up to America by winding Russia up, but was still illegal and provocative. Many thanks Bruce, Ned and Michelle, for your shrewd and interesting comments. Yes Bruce, it's so true, that international political attitudes mirror personal ones, so very true, and sad. It took Britain 250 years to get over their resentment at being thrashed by a bunch of farmers and now (led by Tony Bliar), we seem to have gone too far the other way! Ned, you really do speak from experience, on more than one level! Michele, I wish you could feel more sympathetic toward poor old Mother Russia. She's had such a lot of sheer misfortune for so long and now, when, under her greatest leader ever, she tries to be friendly, she gets her backside kicked again. This kind of treatment can only make matters worse, and cause the Ruskies really to become the nasty types America tried to make us believe they were during the cold war (and succeeded, didn't they Michelle ??). But they are not as defenseless as Bush thinks : their power is in fuel reserves, and EU, not US will suffer !!
Law & Ethics - 3 Answers
Random Answers, Critics, Comments, Opinions :
1 :
International politics is like having neighbors. Some are good friends and invite you over to watch football and drink beer. The rest are just annoying, so you complain about the leaves from their trees falling on your yard and whether their fence is too close to your property line. Then you get together with your friends and you all speculate that they are really perverts or criminals, behind their backs. I think many politicians miss the cold war and want to start it up again. They want to convince the public to spend massive amounts of money on weapons that never see use and to ignore how bad things are at home because of how important it is to maintain unity in order to counter the Russian threat. The 'war against terrorism' just doesn't demand those big ticket weapon systems.
2 :
My theory though it has nothing to do with your question is that Russia especially Putnin wants Russia to be the center of attention and influence it once had when it was a world super power. Their 'perfect society' crashed and burned and the Russians are not good at the Demcracy thing and have no idea how to think for themselves as individuals rather than a collective. My wife is Russian and I have been there 3 times and it is just a big 3rd world country where 1% owns 99% of the wealth just like Mexico. Putnin is still calling the shots and Russia should not be a part of the G8. Why do people in England think they are the puppet of America? Do we not each benefit from our alliance? We are cousins and have similiar interests around the world.
3 :
russia's econmy is improving and putin feels in a stronger position to devote more time to international politics it has started this by supporting iran (to annoy US) and is retalliating to UKs refusal to return turncoat spy it is tit for tat but russia's agenda is to build a strong world image lost after much of it's states separatedin the nineties it is good old cold war posturing
