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Time Magazine is a curious collection of leftist and Marxist sympathies, usually missing the obvious until reality takes a large sledgehammer to their forehead. It's naming of King Vlad Putin, Tsar of the Russias, as 2007's Man of the Year, is rather strange. Putin's hold on power and his strong man rule, was long ago established. This year Russia and Putin did not do anything of note. Time's choice of Putin was of course to avoid naming General Petraeus as the year's most important man – Petraeus after all has only won a war in an unstable Muslim country.
Petraeus is clearly the most important world personality. Iraq is basically won; 100.000 dead fascists and jihadists fertilise its deserts; and in the short term the country will actually become governable and stable. Iran has stopped killing US GIs in Iraq; the border with Syria is closed off, and oil is pumping at pre-2003 levels. Revenues are making Baghdad relevant and the painfully slow process of establishing a federated state with revenue and power sharing between different levels, is proceeding forward, albeit very slowly.
Iraq is the success story of the year. You know this must be true because there is absolutely no media coverage of any events from Iraq.
If US GIs and Iraqi civilians were still being slaughtered at the 2005-2006 rate; than the media would be covering Iraq every minute of every day. Time's choice for Man of the Year, would then be something like 'the Iraqi people' suffering through Islamic attacks targeting innocents and public spaces. The Times and other US liberal media outlets would have declared the war lost and over, and would again be sounding trumpets for Bush's impeachment and the head of Dick Cheney.
For us warmongering, fascist, Jew loving neo-cons, the success of Iraq is not a surprise. When the US military finally made up its mind to fight, instead of sitting in its barracks, the outcome was certain. Petraeus' surge was 3 years too late, but at least it finally occurred. Without Petraeus' new strategy, impetus and force of leadership, Iraq might still be the ungodly mess it was in 2006.
A stable Iraq makes the world a much safer place. The Middle East will be reformed and transformed by the Iraqi experiment. Most importantly, fascist Islam has suffered an overwhelming defeat it will never recover from. 100.000 dead; its financial and leadership networks disrupted and its elite forced to accomodate themselves to a huge US power presence in the region.
That is the story of 2007.
So what does Time focus on? The rather old story of Putin being Tsar and a resurgent Russia becoming more self-confident. This was news maybe in 2004 or 2005, not in 2007.
Putin's career has focused on a few key principles. Control the media. Control energy. Control the most important industrial sectors. Enrich key allies. Grow the budget to support welfare and basic services. Rebuild the military. Declare Chechnya a victory. Expand Russian influence in the near abroad. Challenge the US in the Middle East.
None of these ideas are compatible with Western ideals of free will; freedom; capital markets; transparency; political plurality or constitutionally divided powers. Russia has a constitution, but is about as meaningful as Stalin's Democratic Constitutions and about as real. If Putin wanted to, he could rip up the Constitution and rule as an autocrat – with widespread approval.
Putin's autocracy is not benign. Enemies of the state are routinely imprisoned and killed, including political and business dissidents. Russia is also the most dangerous place in the world to work as a journalist. Hundreds have been killed in the past 8 years. Criticising the government in any form, will land most journalists in jail or assure them a beating or worse.
Mr. Putin's handpicked heir to the throne, Dmitry Medvedev is of course his lackey and knave. Medvedev is only 42 and owes his entire career to Putin's mentorship. He is part of the same St. Petersburg cabal which has followed Tsar Putin into the Kremlin. Corrupt business and political interests will not be affected by Medvedev's selection.
Russia is a large resource rich state ruled by a gang – for the benefit of that gang.
As former chess star and now liberal-democratic political activist Gary Kasparov lamented in a recent Wall Street Journal editorial, 'Time magazine, of course, took obvious pains to explain that its award to Putin is 'not an endorsement' and that it goes to the person who made the most news 'for better or for worse.' Nonetheless the article praises Mr. Putin for restoring his country to prominence in the international arena, dispelling "anarchy" and recovering national pride. The magazine does express concern about his "troubling" record on human rights.'
Time's endorsement of Putin is of course a victory for the Kremlin. It will be used in state propaganda and shown to Russians as proof that the West now respects and admires Putin and Russia. The state will only get stronger and more vicious. Therein lies the real issue. Russia has improved – marginally- since 2000, its economy is 30% larger, its per-capita income is 20% higher, and its rich resources are much in demand, signalling a more prosperous future. But it is a one-party fascist state.
Putin has no more business being Time's man of the year, than the monkey-Mullah Ahmandinejad of Iran.
The real issue of 2007 was Iraq. Iraq is largely won. Petraeus is the architect of that victory and Bush his political equal in withstanding inane calls to withdraw. A successful Iraq is a problem for Time, the marxist media, and the left-wing Democrats. They hate the war. They wanted the US to lose. Now that fascist Islam has suffered a crushing defeat, what will they do?
Ignore it.
This is why Time and other left wing journals and media outlets are terribly irrelevant and dangerous.
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