An Impending Stab to the Heart

Seems the Sakharov prize trumps the Nobel prize for worthy recipients.

I Can't see Snowden as being the cause of a new cold war - that is a misnomer for the animosity between the american ruling junta and the Putin Kremlin. It is no longer animosity between a free super power and a despotic super power but a rivalry between the leadership of two imperialist socialist authoritarians. The US will have to display a return to constitutionally confined governance before they feign moral outrage at any lack of freedom/democracy/accountability in Russia.

I just want someone with egg on his face. Obama or Putin- I don't care. Both are tyrants, one is just really, really good at it.

Given the choice of earning the enmity of Barack "Bows to Tyrants" Obama or Vladimir "Polonium Poisoner" Putin, it's pretty obvious how the committee will lean.

Snowden is no hero for freedom of thought.

Whatever you might think of what NSA was up to, it in no way prevented or hindered "freedom of thought".

Interesting article, but Snowden is not a traitor except in the eyes of the Obama Administration. He hasn't been tried, let alone convicted so "alleged" is the strongest adjective applicable. The gross ineptitude of the Obama clique is obvious to the whole world and I could see the Europeans twisting the knife oh so tenderly...

Can the new conservative Norwegian government take back that Nobel Prize now?

Cold War II? Perhaps even World War III.

Or, if as some historians think about it, the Napoleonic Wars were adequately global in scope, and the Cold War was a sort of proxy World War, then they might have just started World War V.

'Yer welcome.

Maybe Snowdon and Khodorkovsky can split the prize? That would be a slap in the face of totalitarianism. I do have to hand it to Putin, though, as he's the only autocrat who's been able to project the image of an intelligent, thoughtful and reasonable leader applying ruthless force in a surgical manner. It may be that Putin's opponent, Obozo, is such a self parodying buffoon when he attempts to play the role of a totalitarian. I consider Obozo to be the far more dangerous of the two as his narcissism will result in temper tantrums which can do far more damage than Putin's highly controlled brutality. Also, Putin has Russia's interests front and center and will defend them vigorously whereas Obozo loathes the country he's supposedly president of and has no national interests, just his own peculiar constellation of personal interests which he mistakes for national interests.

Putin has direct experience in dealing with islamofascists and thus his firm support of Assad in the face of an Al Qaeda rabble. The situation with Iran is a bit more complicated as Iran is still technically a theocracy but I suspect that Russian plans on using Iran to further its own interests in the ME just as the US attempted to do when it supported the Shah. Also, Iran has demonstrated significant technological competency despite a decades long international embargo which means the benefits of cooperation between Russia and Iran will flow both ways.

The US has nothing concrete to offer except for "democracy". In the ME "democracy" is akin to a group of wolves and a smaller number of sheep voting what to have for supper. Islamofascism and democracy are incompatible but the US administration seems to be incapable of learning from the disasters they've brought about in Libya and Egypt. Russia's long term goal has been to acquire the ME and, should it do so, it will have a stranglehold on Europe's energy supplies. The Euroweenies have conveniently made themselves completely vulnerable by pursuing the Quixotic goal of "green energy". The big question to be answered is what will NATO's response be when the Russians turn off Europe's natural gas and oil in the middle of winter?

The Cold War never ended.
The Americans just declared victory and stopped fighting their side of it.