11-30-2006, 06:56 PM
Quote:While leopards rarely change their spots, there is the possibility that Mr Putin is being framed? Or, others are doing the wet work, for their own reasons, and the odds that he gets the blame is to their benefit?
FWIW, on Putin being set up . . .
Grain of salt, of course, given Pat's tendency to rant lately.
Occhi
Meh. Putin can pretty much do whatever he wants to his former people. You know why? Because he can and while there will be some questions raised, nothing will ever come of it. In several weeks, even the more informed masses will forget, and most masses are not even informed. This has been the Modus Operandi of all of the communist leaders from the beginning. They know that while unhappy, the West will just want to not make waves.
Hell, they've stolen US bombers that were forced to land during WW2 and nothing happened.
They invaded whole countries and nothing happened. Hungary, Chechoslovakia come to mind right off the bat.
They've cheated on every arms treaty ever signed and nothing happened. SALT treaty comes to mind. Yeh, limit the number of ICBM silos mutually. Great idea. Except they designed their ICBMs to launch from a special launcher that did not destroy the silo, so they could be reusable, heh.
100% of their diplomats were officers of either the KGB or the GRU and were wither spies or were helping spies. Once in the last 60 years, Great Britain threw out over 100 russian diplomats in one shot. That's it. Noone else... ever.
As some russian said before the Chech invasion... Yeh, they will be mad as hell. Their diplomats will accuse. They will even throw rocks at our embassy. And you know what? They will calm down, clean up and even pay for the repairs with their own money.
This is nothing and really, nobody cares. Too bad that the guys's death is for nothing.
-A