Russian Gov't auctions Yukos to itself

Now that may sound cynical, but one has to wonder how a company that no one has ever heard of was able to swoop in and buy up 11% of the Russian oil market without some cozy connections to Putin and his thug regime. Yukos made 17 offers to the Russian government in its attempt to prevent the seizure and sell-off of the company. But anyone who has followed this story knows that this was never about a tax bill and all about Putin's consolidation of power. Mikhail Khodorkovsky, Yukos's billionaire owner, was a vocal opponent of the Kremlin before Putin had him arrested and jailed on a variety of inventive allegations. This, combined with Putin's take-over of the little bit of independent media that existed in Russia, his involvement in the fixed elections in Ukraine and Belarus and his new powers (granted by the Duma, which by fraud and ruthlessness he now completely controls) to appoint governors, tap phones and prevent reporters from entering Chechnya, would seem to indicate that when President Bush looked into his eyes and saw a democrat, the President was probably suffering from the effects of poisonous soup. The real tragedy of the whole situation is that if the U.S. hadn't bent over backwards endorsing this former K.G.B. officer and now almost total dictator, he likely would never have felt emboldened to move as ruthlessly and as brazenly as he has. But Bush gave him the cover he needs to claim that all his actions are justified by, you guessed it, the "War on Terror." No matter what the Polyannas may want to believe, Russia remains our most dangerous enemy and the most dangerous enemy of freedom in the world. Osama has fanatics with no love of life, Russia has 3000 nuclear missiles that can be pointed at us in minutes and they have a problem. It's what is known in international relations circles as a security dilemma. Russia has, historically, been invaded...a lot. It has usually come from the west and it has wrecked the country...a lot. Now the Soviet Union is gone and the country is far less powerful than it once was. This makes them feel insecure. Nato and the E.U. are expanding east. This makes them feel insecure. George Bush is running around invading countries he thinks he needs to in order to insure American security. THIS makes them feel insecure. So Putin has determined that stability and strength are far more important than democracy. He meddles in Belarus and Ukraine because he wants a buffer between Russia and Europe. He poisoned a reformer because the reformer was talking about E.U. membership and "Westernization." Russia's national pride is bruised and they don't want to give up any more than they already have. This is logical. It is also dangerous. I would very much like to see the U.S. take a tougher line with Putin and stop allowing him to justify every anti-democratic and power-grabbing move he makes with the claim that it is necessary to fight terror. It doesn't hold water here, yea alright it does, but Bush isn't locking up his political enemies and taking over CNN and Texaco.

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Now that it seems that the unchecked killing of ethnic Africans in Sudan might be abating; or not, it's kinda day to day, we must ask ourselves, "Where will the next genocide come from?" The Onion has found the answer.