Bush´s Russian Twin

Or how the US elites like to see other countries´leaders (or US- presidents)

Let´s look at the results of Boris Yeltsin´s rule.
Justin Raimondo from Anti-war.com writes under the headline:

The Legacy of Boris Yeltsin

Corruption, crony capitalism, and Russia’s near-demise

The legacy of Boris Yeltsin, who presided over what Paul Klebnikov described as “one of the most corrupt regimes in history,” is, quite literally, the death agony of the Russian nation. As David Satter pointed out in the Wall Street Journal:

“Between 1992 and 1994, the rise in the death rate in Russia was so dramatic that Western demographers did not believe the figures. The toll from murder, suicide, heart attacks and accidents gave Russia the death rate of a country at war; Western and Russian demographers now agree that between 1992 and 2000, the number of “surplus deaths” in Russia–deaths that cannot be explained on the basis of previous trends–was between five and six million persons.”

The Yeltsin era was marked by a precipitous fall in living standards, but some prospered. Given privileged access to “privatized” state property, the clique around Yeltsin amassed fantastic wealth. The one who perhaps profited the most was Boris Berezovsky, whose methods were described by Klebnikov:

“Using his access to the highest officials of the Russian government and his reputation as a close friend of the Yeltsin family, Berezovsky hammered away at the privatization projects that would put key state industries in his grasp.”

Yeltsin’s clique, which included his daughter, was known as “the Family” – not as in “family values,” or the Partridge Family, but as in the Russian equivalent of The Sopranos. The rule of the commissars had been succeeded by the reign of the gangsters, criminal elements who seized control of the national economy and engineered a complete takeover of the state apparatus, not for any ideological motive or ostensibly “patriotic” purpose, but simply to enrich themselves.

Their strategy made use of the “shock therapy” approach to privatizing the economy as advocated by Harvard professor Jeffrey Sachs. The process was set up to favor Yeltsin’s courtiers, who paid rock-bottom prices in a rigged auction. The industrial base of the Russian economy was sold off for a song: the whole process amounted to a spree of looting such as hadn’t been seen since the sack of Rome.

Since Russia´s president is no longer a drunk, Washington is no longer amused by the country.

Whenever leaders of other countries are either weak or corrupt or ruthless oppressors of their own people, Washington loves them. When they show even the slightest concern for the well-being of their general population, they´ll get on the United States enemy list.

A “democratic” opposition will be financed. Washinton and George Soros will send it´s Trojan horse the private “National Endowment for Democracy”( NED) to do, what once used to be one of the CIA´s jobs, trying to start what nowadays is called a “color-revolution”.
Or terrorist groups will be armed and trained by the real CIA.
Or US intelligence will go searching for traitors in a country´s military for good old-fashioned coup, as just has been done in Honduras.

What exactly did the Honduran president do, to anger Washington and it´s Honduran stooges?
Alejandra Fernandez,a Honduran student is cited by Benjamim Drangl in Counterpunch:

“He raised the minimum wage, gave out free school lunches, provided milk for the babies and pensions for the elderly, distributed energy-saving light bulbs, decreased the price of public transportation, made more scholarships available for students.”

Oh yes, and president Zelaya was also preparing a few amendments to the current constitution.

According to Central American political analyst Alberto Valiente Thoresen, Honduras’s current constitution, written in 1982,
“was the product of a context characterised by counter-insurgency policies supported by the US government, civil façade military governments and undemocratic policies.”
In an assembly made up of elected representatives from various political parties and social sectors, a new, likely more progressive and inclusive constitution could have a lasting impact on the country’s corrupt politicians, powerful sweatshop owners and repressive military institutions.
Many commentators have said that Zelaya sought to re-write the constitution to extend his time in office. Yet nothing indicates that that was the case. Leading up to the coup, Zelaya was pushing for a referendum on 28 June in which the ballot question was to be:
“Do you agree that, during the general elections of November 2009 there should be a fourth ballot to decide whether to hold a Constituent National Assembly that will approve a new political constitution?”
This non-binding referendum – not plans from Zelaya to expand his power – was enough to push right wing and military leaders to organise a coup.

After a successful coup the military usually will then install a dictator, the blood-thirstier the better, and his death-squad leaders, at least if they are South-American, will have be trained in the School of the Americas in Fort Benning.

If no dictator can be installed the country will be surrounded by US military bases in preparation for invasion or just mass-murdering remote control air-attacks.

And in all this, Europe is standing steadfestly on the side of it´s big brother, the US of A, who tells us exactly whom we are supposed to love and whom to hate.

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