Vladimir Putin, madman, genius, or both?

[a_unique_person]

A few years back we had "Mad Vlad" who wanted to shoot all Jews with an "atomic gun". Fortunately, his insane nationalist party crumbled with Vlad and Yeltsin became President.

Now we have the good-looking, articulate, self-satisfied former FSB man Vladimir Putin, undisputed leader of Russia.Funny how his critics keep turning up dead.

Some things about Putin I like, some not so much. A couple of his put-downs of Dubbya a few months back were classics and I was prepared to let him have some leeway as a result, but this latest murder, on Putin's birthday, of his harshest critic, does bother me. I'm a little surprised no mention has been made of it and I thought I'd throw it out to see if anyone cares or has an opinion.

Russia is a mess, it tried to change too quickly from Communist to radical free enterprise. China is a better example of how to do it. Now that the place is in chaos, the Russian people seem to prefer a strongman who can at least hold the place together in one piece. Lesser of two evils kind of thing, perhaps. He is a ruthless, almost, dictator, but that is what they appear to want for now.

 

[geni]

I want a good explanation for this, but it's like no one cares...

Because with the forces availible it was pretty much the only tactic that made any sense. Basra is a port and you need one of those. After that the US didn't really have enough force to engage in street warfare on a large scale so staying out in the desert and pushing on the bagdad was the obvious option.