“Actually I have never mentioned Ekho Moskvy before my last post. And I have never mentioned Russia Today - not even once!”
I didn´t count so you could be right.^^
On the other hand, videos by Russia Today were linked/cited several times during the last weeks and no one seemed to care.^^
“What I wrote wasn’t an argument, it was a question.”
Sure. It looked like “a statement that looks like a question” to me though.^^
“[…]Yet I don’t hear people in the Western media bitching continually about Turkey. Funny that.”
I get the impression that “the west” (and probably most of the rest of the world…)cares more about democracy and freedom and whatnot when it suits their geopolitical interests. I still remember how they suddenly realized that Gaddafi was not a democrat…^^
I have seen lots of comments in western media supporting Putin’s right to his “sphere of influence”, criticizing NATO encroachment etc. I don’t agree with these, but they are there, amongst the variety of articles in our media, including some very critical of Putin and Russia. I admit that I don’t read or watch much Western media on Russia but what I have seen is quite varied.
I think the term “Russophobe” is a pathetic response to criticism of Russian policy .
Russia, aspiring super power is held to a different standard than Turkey and Saudi Arabia. If Germany or the US or UK imprisoned journalists or opposition leaders, this would be given much more play than if it happened in Turkey. The Olympics also brings a country into the limelight, and China and Chinese were also indignant that the western media spent so much ink on Tibet and human rights. Russia is in the limelight now, and doesn’t like it. Most of the time Russia isn’t really on the radar much, at least in North America, no one much cares, if it weren’t for the Olympics and the odd war.
The West holds its nose and deals with all kinds of tyrants when it suits them. Yes. Putin can imprison whomever he wants and the west will still deal with him.
Seizing another country’s territory, and claiming the right to use force to “protect” Russians in other countries, sort of changes things. If Turkey were a nuclear power, and whipped its population into a nationalist fervour and said it was determined to right historical wrongs where Turkic populations live in former Ottoman lands, I think people would pay more attention.
No one thought Gaddafi was a democrat but they dealt with him. British courts even made a deal with him re Lockerbie from what I gather. In my view NATO should have stayed out of the civil war there. He wasn’t threatening any other country, and had even lost interest in financing terrorism from I could tell. This was not so much about NATO"s geopolitical interests as big-power international do-gooding, much like Yugoslavia.
@Steve: “…I think the term “Russophobe” is a pathetic response to criticism of Russian policy…”
There are some people who think “anti-Semitic” is a pathetic word to use about those who continually and selectively rant and rave about Israeli policy.
It depends. Not all critics of Israel are anti-Semites (at the risk of stating the obvious.)
Nevertheless, when people are utterly one sided in their criticism of Israel, when they manifest an exaggerated and unfair hostility, when they apply double standards, when they twist facts…well, one is surely entitled to wonder what their true motivations are?
These are the kinds of people I was referring to. (And there seems to be no shortage of them among invited studio guests at the BBC.)