the Cold War Again

Any one notice that Russia is no longer a democracy. Putin just appointed his right hand man as the top guy. I forgot his name but it translates as Bear. Putin then became Prime Minister and is still clearly in charge of Russia. Russia's economy which was improving in the 90's has now started to go south again. Even oil, which makes up about 30% of their income, is in decline. The government is taxing 92% of profits leaving them little left to invest in bring new fields into production. They make exceptions to get outside investors, but even then there is not a long line forming to get into the oil business in Russia. In short, they are killing their golden goose.

Russia had a big market through Moscow recently. Missiles, soldiers, etc. That kind of march. The flexing their muscles march. They are beginning to be hostile with words toward Georgia. Recall they also have thousands (THOUSANDS) of nuclear weapons. While they can not match the United States conventional army, they don't really need to. THEY HAVE ENOUGH NUCLEAR WEAPONS TO DESTROY THE PLANT ABOUT 30 TIMES.

And yet we fear Iraq and the middle east. We adjust our life style and change our principles in this country and do horrible things (torture) to both the guilty and the innocent. Because we are afraid of Ben Laden. That guy was brilliant. Evil brilliant, but still brilliant. Who would have thought that we would start down the road of the Patriot Act, torture, imprisonment with a trial (even of legitimate citizens), stupid and ineffective airport security, etc. because of single attack and a few more feeble attempts. Who would have believe as Americans that we were such cowards to give up our principles because we were afraid of him and his band of followers. And even worse, who would have believed we were stupid enough to spent a trillion dollars on a war to stop him (and stabilize an oil rich region (like that worked)) and in the end not accomplish much except for generating more people that hate us (terrorists in the making).

Meanwhile, we are now weaker and poorer with weakened principles and resolve. And guess what. The only real threat to world destruction, the nuclear bombs and those that possess it. The short brief period when Russia looked like our friend, did we try to start disarming. Of course not, we are stupid and too much filled with fear, see paragraph above. Meanwhile, Russia has started the spiral into behavior that can only renew the cold war. Couple that with China's growing strength and economic power and I would say that the self-weakened America should be worried about the future -- more on this subject later.