BALLOON PAYMENT FOR SOCHI OLYMPICS
INVADE NOW FOR BEST FINANCING TERMS
THE VIEW FROM THE U.S. VIRGIN ISLANDS
By John McCarthy
Moderate Voice Columnist
Remember when
the worst thing we had to fear from Vladimir Putin was another garish
bare-chested, bareback photo opportunity?
There had come a
time in the career of President Putin when he was even taking flack from Pussy
Riot band members and seemed destined for irrelevance.
Not any more.
The erstwhile
and current president always wanted us to look at him as a tough guy (what’s a
former KGB guy supposed to do?) hence the pictures of him in black belt karate
gear, on horseback as a half-suit Lord Godiva and supine in the snow with his
big dogs and guns.
Putin wasn’t
eligible to run for a third consecutive presidential term in 2008, so he did
the next best thing, put in a puppet (Dmitry Medvedev) to run for president and
win in his place and then have him appoint himself (the former president) as
“Prime Minister” for the next four years.
Vlad the
Deplaner put up with Pussy Riot’s taunts in the days leading up to his coming
out party at the Sochi Olympic Games this year – because he wanted to appear
statesmanlike in the international press – and because he knew he was planning
something even bigger at the conclusion of the sporting contests.
Four days after
the closing ceremonies of the $50 billion Russian-sponsored Olympic games,
Putin marched his troops less than 300 miles away from Sochi into Crimea and
seized 233,090 square miles of beachfront property and 45 trillion cubic meters
of strategic gas reserves – it’s the kind real estate deal that you won’t see
on Million Dollar Listing.
At the
beginning of the year, Putin was on the verge of going the way of Yeltsin and Gorbachev,
but the patina of a successful Olympic games put his name back in the news
rundowns as a bear claw to the rainbow community and possible exterminator of
wild dogs.
Now, the
parallels to Adolf Hitler and the appeasement that the 1936 Olympic Games
represented – seem ominous – you don’t have to look twice to see Putin’s
Yeti-like cojones. Vlad had to pay for the Olympics somehow – how else are you
going to raise $50 billion in five months?
The question is:
what are we going to do about it? President Obama was out front on stepped up
economic sanctions against Russia when he got the news live via telephone from
his presidential peer that “someone” had taken down Malaysian Airlines Flight
17. Sanctions have never kept any nation from doing what it felt it was
autonomous to do.
At the beginning
of the year Putin faced political oblivion with a trending loss of support at
home. What he needed to keep ordinary Russians from wondering if their lives
had improved under him was a wag-the-dog-type diversion. He’s definitely got
that and more now.
According to
Gallup polls, Putin’s popularity rating had sunk to an all-time low of 54% last
year. In April of 2014, after the Olympics and Crimea – his popularity had tied
for his highest ever mark at 83 percent approval.
Meanwhile, the
EU leaders who are doing everything right by international law standards have
seen their popularity ratings fall beyond low into single digit numbers. And
President Obama’s Gallup poll numbers have also tied for a notable mark – in
his case a low point of 38 percent approval tying him with August 2011 polling
numbers – and a recent Quinnipiac
University poll that rated him the worst American president since 1945.
It’s OK to keep
talking about increasing economic sanctions against Russia in the summer of our
discontent, but when winter approaches, there are 18 nations that get five to
100 percent of their gas from Moscow. Thirty percent of Europe depends on
Russia for oil.
Ultimately, the
international community must galvanize one and all to oppose Putin in a way
that not only hurts his bank account – but most importantly – his pride.
No amount of
black market Viagra will be able to lift his swelling pride if it is
unmistakable to his people.
That means the
international community should call on FIFA to take away the World Cup Games
from Russia in 2018.
Failing that, a
boycott of the upcoming FIFA World Cup Games is in order for all nations that
value the rule of law – just as the United States did in 1980 with the Moscow
Olympic Games.
The Carter and
Obama administrations have been tagged with the “malaise” label, it’s time we
passed the uneasiness buck to where it belongs – back to Putin.
Right now he’s
riding high on his horse and preaching to the choir. A national tide of rising
pride is not likely to diminish in the next four years if the status quo is
maintained. People who supply
irresponsible people with surface-to-air missile systems and then train them to
shoot down passenger planes must pay a meaningful price.
Photo ops never
showed if Putin plays an instrument.
It’s time we
teach him how to play taps on his home turf.
© 2014 John Francis
McCarthy/Secret Goldfish Publishing House, LLC
John McCarthy is a reporter,
fine artist and photojournalist based in the U.S. Virgin Islands. Please send comments
to: johnfmccarthy807@msn.com
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