Putin is the result of so many failures by politicians, business leaders and the public in both Russia and the West, he is not a president at all, just a thug and war criminal:
Putin is no brilliant operative, he’s the worlds largest organized crime boss.
I can’t agree more, Torsten. Yet, he’s not doing this alone as @NearlyNapping wrote in a previous post. I read a lot of history books, especially about The Tudors. You may recall your history teacher speaking about the Renaissance and Humanism. Well, about that…There were two kinds of humanists; the kind who strove for a better life for everyone, and the kind that aspired to get into the good grace of the monarch as soon as possible. Why? Because they wanted to influence the Head of State to do things in their favour. And they succeeded very often. I wonder what possessed Catherine De Medici to set her son, the then King of France, against the Protestants in 1572? More than 6,000 Huguenots were slaughtered after the wedding of Henry of Bourbon and Margaret, one of Catherine’s daughters. Infants, children and women were not spared. What possessed Queen Elizabeth I of England and Ireland? She had 200 Catholic priests executed in a period of six or seven years. What possessed Philip II of Spain to burn so many innocent people at the stake? William the Silent was murdered in 1584 at Philip’s behest. Recently, proof was found that he’d promised the murderer, Balthasar Gerards, a Frenchmen, a sum of money which would now be worth 3,000,000 euro’s, almost 3,000,000 dollars. Yet, I must say, Gerards soon found out that money is not always a pleasure, but sometimes a burden. An enormous burden for him, because he was hung, drawn and quatered by the Dutch. William had been very good for them; no Catholics nor Protestants had been executed when he was stadtholder of the Netherlands.
You see, Torsten, sadly, that one phrase in Abba’s song ‘Waterloo’, ‘the history book on the shelf is always repeating itself.’ is true.
Yours,
Marc