December 31, 2013

Putin's no-win Situation

By Kim Zigfeld
Desperate to salvage his pet project of staging the Olympic Games from a public relations nightmare, the Russia dictator Vladimir Putin began releasing numerous political prisoners last week. But even as he did so, an expected wave of terrorist attacks began sweeping the country, leaving the prospects for Putin's propaganda games exceptionally bleak. The native denizens of the Caucasus region believe that Putin is staging the Olympics on holy land, essentially their ancestral burial grounds, and they are outraged. What's more, Putin has failed to quell the separatist movement that has been roiling the region ever since he came to power. These powerful twin forces give rise to inevitable efforts by terrorists to use violence to undermine and destroy the Olympic effort, something the rebel leader Doku Umarev has openly promised. Over the weekend, not one but two massive terrorist explosions rocked Volgograd, formerly Stalingrad, the closest major Russian metropolis to the Olympic venues...(Read Full Article)