Friday, March 16, 2007

Kasparov with Spiegel

Chessbase doesn't have this yet as at Friday morning Sydney time. So I'm posting this now. Garry Kasparov appears in an interview with German publication, Spiegel Online:

Pressure is counterproductive. The regime uses it to its advantage. The West should simply be objective. Russia is not a democracy. If you realize this, you should say so. No one refers to the Chinese leaders or the Belarusian dictator Aleksander Lukashenko as democrats. Don't close your eyes when Russia supports terrorists like Hezbollah and Hamas, or Iran.

More from "Russia Is not a Democracy". Also in the same site is another one of those now familiar articles about the former world champion's political struggles against the present Russian regime. Read more here.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Russia sells military weapons to Iran and has done so for over 25 years. This is an undeniable fact.

Secondly ,Russia is the second biggest seller of military weapons in the world...many of which intentially or unintentially end up in the hands of resistance movements in the middle east.

Hamas and Hezbollah weapons are predominantly russian made or copies of russian weapons.

They certainly arent using alot of american or israeli designed weapons.

Anonymous said...

Well you said it, second biggest seller. Like if american weapons end up in good hands only.

Kasparov's statement back from 1989: "There are lots of american weapons in Nagorno-Karabakh" (Investbanka 1989 by Branislav Rakic).

Following economical interest is not same as "support" to Iran. Proper language is one of the skills required to politicians, Kasparov is tripping himself by saying this garbage.

His main problem, I believe, is that he is saying what western media/public want to hear. For what is that important to average Russian voter. Those people still choose the president by their own preferance.

I think he is not seriously running for presidency, he is just branding his name in mainstream media waiting for rich sponsor to come out with 10 million offer to bring Kasparov back to chess.

Ryan said...

I think Kasparov is sincere about his political efforts, but I expect that he will return to chess eventually.