Reply #17: those were your words..

[russian33]

"falling completely into the hands of one ruthless dictator, Putin"

I'm not defending Putin, and don't put words in my mouth about 'best interest of the US and mankind in general'. If I didn't have best interests of US in my mind, I wouldn't be a member of DU.

I was born in the USSR, and I emigrated here in 1991. I lived it, I know it, and that's why I take any reporting done by US and Europe with a grain of salt. USSR didn't make it it's mission in life to destroy US, the animosity was a 2 way street. And it wasn't all that bad living behind the 'Iron Curtain', take it from me, I did it.

It is going to take a really long time for Russia to become the democracy US wants it to be (US, not Bush admin). You can't take a huge country like that, and turn it around in a few years. Yeltsin sent the country into a tail-spin and a black hole. For his job, Putin did very well in terms of stabilizing it. Russia needs a strong person to lead it, if it doesn't want another 10 years with someone like Yeltsin. While I may not agree wiht everything Putin does, as a US citizen I won't sit around and tell him what he should or should not do. If Russians aren't happy, they'll let it be known. They revolted in the 1900's, they fought of the Nazis, they can stand up for themselves.