By Anwaar Hussain

Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin was born on October 7, 1952 in St Petersburg, then known as Leningrad. His father Vladimir Spiridonovich Putin, was a factory foreman and his mother, Maria Ivanovna Putina. He was raised as an only child; his two brothers died young, one shortly after birth, the other of diphtheria during World War II. In his youth he was often called Putka.

On the world stage, Putka’s arch rival is the 43rd President of the United States of America, George Walker Bush. He was born two days after the national holiday of the Fourth of July, 1946 in New Haven, Connecticut where his father was attending Yale College in the Class of 1949. His mother was the former Barbara Pierce, whom his father had married on January 6, 1945. George was their first born. He likes to call himself Dubya (W).

Of late, Putka has been hopping mad with Dubya. Dubya has been riding rough shod in his backyard for some time now with Putka merely watching. Dubya’s latest push to expand NATO to Russia’s borders and his plans to deploy missile defense systems in the former Soviet bloc, however, seems to have finally drawn Putka’s ire. Dubya’s administration’s sporadic criticism of Putka’s rising dictatorship has not helped the matters either.

That Putka seems to have had enough of Dubya is evident from a speech in Munich last July where he derided the U.S. for its “unilateral and frequently illegitimate actions,” claiming that “the United States has overstepped its national borders in every way” and slammed its “greater and greater disdain” for international law. Not very far back, in a thinly veiled reference to the U.S., he also said,” the Comrade Wolf knows who to eat, as the saying goes. It knows who to eat and is not about to listen to anyone, it seems.”

Putka now seems to have had enough of Dubya’s solo stint at the world stage. Flush with his recent oil wealth, Putka wants to recapture some of the lost glories of Russia. His country is the world’s No. 2 oil producer. The recent hike in oil price to over $80 a barrel has filled the Kremlin’s coffers like never before giving Russian military a much needed shot in the arm. Putka now views the Iran standoff as another opportunity to reclaim some of the past global power status. He is pushing back hard against Dubya.

In a tit for tat response, therefore, Putka test-fired a new ballistic missile supposedly capable of thwarting Washington’s fledgling missile shield, has blocked moves at the U.N. aimed at granting Kosovo formal independence from Russia’s ally, Serbia and recently planted a Russian flag at the North Pole. Also, last week in Russia, he made the U.S. Secretaries of State and Defense wait 45 minutes for him before delivering them a tongue-lashing over America’s missile defense plan. All this while, Putka has offered only lukewarm support to West’s campaign against Iran.

Not satisfied with redeploying the Russian fleet to the Mediterranean, Putka engaged in war games with China and several central Asian nations. Moscow and Beijing are more closely aligned now, against U.S. power, than they ever were during the Cold War, when their respective Communist Parties were at daggers drawn.

Putka has also withdrawn from a Cold War-era treaty governing the size of conventional military forces in Europe, ordered its old Bear bombers to fly nuclear patrols along old Cold War frontiers and this Tuesday, disregarding warnings of a possible suicide attack against him, Putka became the first occupant of the Kremlin since Stalin to visit Tehran. From Tehran yesterday, to give further heartburn to Dubya, he issued a not-so-veiled warning against any attack on Iran. This at a time when the U.S. and its key European allies are rattling their sabers loudly while pushing for a new round of sanctions aimed at forcing Tehran to suspend uranium-enrichment.

At home, Putka has fanned nationalist, anti-American sentiment with nostalgia for the past global power status, has created an aggressively anti-Western youth league called “NASHI” and has ratcheted up his own rhetorical attacks on the U.S. and Western Europe.

That both Putka and Dubya are equally ruthless when it comes to pursuing their interests is a fact duly confirmed by the political legacies of their respective predecessors and their present day actions in places like Chechnya, Iraq and Afghanistan. A quick look at their lives, however, may give us denizens of planet earth some inkling as to what is in store for us in the coming years.

As a young man, Putka studied law at State University in St Petersburg, then known as Leningrad, and joined the KGB’s foreign intelligence service after graduating. His rise in the Russian political system has been meteoric after he left the KGB in 1990. He then became an ally of liberal Anatoly Sobchak, the mayor of St Petersburg, whom he met during his study. He first became Mr Sobchak’s head of external relations and then served as deputy mayor from March 1994. When Mr Sobchak lost power in 1996 it was another liberal, deputy Prime Minister Anatoly Chubais, who recommended him for a job in the presidential administration.

There he rose to be deputy chief-of-staff before being asked, in July 1998, to take charge of one of Russia’s new security services, the Federal Security Bureau (FSB). Subsequently, President Boris Yeltsin appointed him as head of the powerful Security Council. After Boris Yeltsin sacked Sergei Stepashin in August 1999, he became Russia’s prime minister. On the last day of the 20th century, Boris Yeltsin resigned and appointed him as acting president. Presidential elections were held on March 26, 2000. Putin received 52.94 percent of all votes. The inauguration took place on May 7, 2000.

Until the presidential elections, Putka had no experience of elected office. He was not renowned as a captivating speaker - his nickname used to be the “grey cardinal”. During recent summits though, he proved to be an excellent speaker indeed. He is said to be most popular among young people, Muscovites and educated people. His reputation is of a good chairman and organiser. He is a candidate of economic sciences (1996).

Putka has good command of English and German and is fond of sports, especially wrestling. He has been going in for sambo (a Russian style of self-defence) and judo since the age of 11. He won the sambo championships of St Petersburg many times and became Master of Sports first in sambo and later in judo. Putka doesn’t smoke and he is not an excessive drinker.

Boris Yeltsin introduced him to the Russian people by saying that “he will be able to unite around himself those who will revive Great Russia in the new, 21st century”. Sergei Stepashin, federal security minister under Boris Yeltsin, later described him as a “decent and honest man”. Boris Nemtsov, a former deputy prime minister, said that “he’s a decent, tough and energetic man who was out of public politics due to the specifics of his job”. During a summit in June 2000, U.S. President Bill Clinton praised him for “surely being capable of creating a strong and prosperous Russia”. After Former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev met with Mr Putin in August 2000, he told that “he’s certainly no threat to the Russian democracy”.

Here are some of Putka’s famous quotes;

“History proves that all dictatorships, all authoritarian forms of government are transient. Only democratic systems are not transient. Whatever the shortcomings, mankind has not devised anything superior.”

“We certainly would not want to have same kind of democracy as they have in Iraq, quite honestly.”

“Anyone who doesn’t regret the passing of the Soviet Union has no heart. Anyone who wants it restored has no brains.”

“My sacred duty is to bring together the Russian people, unite the people around clear tasks. We have one Fatherland, one people and a common future.”

And on America pulling out of long-standing treaties and bullying the UN, he said, “Unilateral, illegitimate actions have not solved a single problem, they have become a hotbed of further conflicts.”

In the other corner we have Dubya of the United States of America. Possibly hobbled by childhood dyslexia, initially, Dubya’s prospects of living up to his famous lineage were dim. Though he did maintain a gentlemanly “C” average at Yale and acquired a Masters of Business Administration degree from Harvard Business School, he proved an uninspired student throughout his educational career. With an admittedly drinking affliction in his youth, he continued to flounder until he turned 40. His rebirth as a believing Christian, by his own admission, helped put him on the straight and narrow path that led him to the Presidency.

A lot in Dubya’s success in later life can safely be attributed to his social position and his father’s business and political connections. The first President Bush had great connections in the Middle East, particularly with the Saudi royal family and the powerful Bin Laden clan. Using his father’s Saudi connections, Dubya became a millionaire twice over through Middle Eastern oil projects. His most notable achievement in private life was becoming president and chief operating partner of a professional baseball team. He later became the supreme commander of American armed forces.

He was arrested in 1976 for driving under the influence of alcohol, in Kennebunkport, Maine. Pled guilty, paid fine, and had driver’s license suspended for 30 days. Dubya, thus, is the only U.S. president to enter office with a felony conviction on his record. He was also arrested twice for college pranks (charges dropped) for celebrating a Yale football victory by pulling up Princeton goal posts and for “borrowing” a large Christmas wreath from a store door (source: Washington Post).

During his first presidential campaign, Dubya capitalized on the low expectations others had for him, and won respect - and votes - for going the distance without stumbling or embarrassing himself. His opponent, Al Gore, had to rise and exceed expectations while Bush merely had to live up to lowered expectations to rise above them and gain credence.

It was thus that in the closest election in a century, it all came down to a matter of 537 votes in Florida. Out of the nearly six million votes cast in the Sunshine State (5,861,785 total, only 36,742 of which were won by third party candidates), Bush won by a margin representing 0.0087%. That’s less than nine one-thousandths of a percentage point. To this day, many Americans doubt the win by so slim a margin. His succession to the Presidency was decided by the Supreme Court, after a month-long battle over who actually won the election.

Dubya took the oath of office on January 20, 2001 as the 43rd President of United States of America. Months later, after a convenient 911, Dubya proceeded forthwith to declare open a non-ending ‘war on terra’ that continues to this day. That war, his terrorized nation and a few thousand overstuffed ballot boxes ensured his re-election in November 2004 to become the first son of a president to win two terms in office. After initially riding high on the ‘wings of terra’, he has recently become the least popular president of United States ever.

As a hobby, Dubya collects autographed baseballs.

Here are just some of Dubya’s many quotes;

“I know the human being and fish can coexist peacefully.”

“I know what I believe. I will continue to articulate what I believe and what I believe - I believe what I believe is right.”

“I think if you know what you believe, it makes it a lot easier to answer questions; I can’t answer your question.”

“I think we ought to raise the age at which juveniles can have a gun.”

“The very act of spending money can be expensive.”

“More and more of our imports come from overseas.”

“The California crunch really is the result of not enough power-generating plants and then not enough power to power the power of generating plants.”

“One of the common denominators I have found is that expectations rise above that which is expected.”

[June 14, 2001, speaking to Swedish Prime Minister Lars Göran Persson, unaware that a live TV camera was running] “It’s amazing I won. I was running against peace, prosperity, and incumbency.”

“Our enemies are innovative and resourceful, and so are we. They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we.”

Now the scribe has three questions to ask of readers;

Q No.1. Dyslexia is a learning disability characterized by problems with reading, spelling, writing, speaking, listening, confusion with directions, confusion with certain concepts, such as “up” and “down,” “early” and “late,” and mathematics etc. Do you think Dubya still suffers from dyslexia?

Q No. 2. Dubya has given Putka a nickname. It is Pootie-Poot. What do you think Putka should call him?

Q No. 3. Who is going to kill us more in the coming years, Putka or Dubya?

What say dear readers?

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Copyrights : Anwaar Hussain

Author’s note : Please comment here or write to me at eagleeye@emirates.net.ae

Sources

1. http://vladimirputin.4u.ru/

2. http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0124133/bio

3. http://tinyurl.com/2pqpt6