Why is Putin Being a Jerk Off? Why Would Snowden Be Connected to Anti Gay Laws

Putin is stuck. He cannot extradite Snowden to the U.S. without looking subservient. At the same time, he has no real interest in further damaging relations with Washington.

That might seem strange given the angry rhetoric that regularly issues from Moscow, in particular from the Parliament, where Putin's United Russia party dominates. Just in December, Putin signed a bill banning the adoption of Russian orphans by Americans.

However, anti-Americanism has always been a complicated game for the Russian president. On the one hand, it plays well in the provinces. Since December 2011, when Moscow's boulevards erupted into protest, Putin has faced the most serious political challenge of his career. Having lost the support of sophisticated urbanites, his priority has been to shore up his provincial base.

One key strategy has been to appeal to more traditional and nationalist constituencies. Kremlin operatives attempt to discredit Putin's critics by portraying them as stooges for an interventionist Washington that seeks to interfere in Russian domestic life. In 2007, Putin compared his opponents to "jackals," scrounging around outside foreign embassies for handouts.

Although exploiting xenophobia may seem crude, it works with some segments of the population. Putin wins widespread credit for standing up for Russia's rights and restoring the country's position in the world.

Still, while insisting on Russian sovereignty, Putin loses the aura of a skilled statesman if his policies provoke genuine crises. Behind the scenes, and even in public, he has sought accommodation on certain international issues. Putin, the anti-American in chief, personally faced down communist protesters to permit NATO to build a transit hub in the city of Ulyanovsk.

Some in Washington have urged President Obama to skip the G20 summit in St. Petersburg in September. Sen. Lindsey Graham even suggested boycotting the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics. Putin would clearly like to avoid such snubs.

But were they to occur, he would cast them as yet another show of U.S. arrogance, a slap in the face not for him personally but for Russia. Assuming the leaders of Western European countries -- where many sympathize with Snowden -- do come to St. Petersburg, the final impression produced by Obama's empty chair might be less of Russian humiliation than of U.S. isolation.

For this and other reasons, the White House would probably also prefer to move beyond the Snowden issue. The U.S. public appears ambivalent at this point, uncomfortable about both Snowden's law-breaking and the scope of government snooping.

Yet the longer the issue remains in the public eye, the more embarrassing it is likely to become for the administration. For a U.S. attorney general to have to guarantee that a suspect would not be tortured if returned shows how much has changed over the past 12 years. The more officials turn out to have "misspoken" in denying existing surveillance programs, the lower trust in government is likely to sink.

At the same time, the U.S. has a broader agenda on which it needs to negotiate with Moscow. Syria continues to bleed. Although odds of a breakthrough are low, a joint U.S.-Russian peace conference is supposed to take place in Geneva this fall. The Iranian and North Korean nuclear programs remain urgent challenges. On these and other issues, Russia's U.N. Security Council seat makes it a crucial player.

Through 2014, as U.S. troops withdraw from Afghanistan, the NATO transport route across Russian territory will remain important. If Secretary of State John Kerry's latest attempt to revive Middle East peace talks is to bear fruit, the U.S. will at least need to persuade Russia not to become a spoiler.

Finally, even on Snowden, the White House may not want to push the Russians too far. As Andrew Kuchins, director of the Russia and Eurasia Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, points out, the U.S. could do worse than to have Snowden remain -- under tight control -- in Moscow.

If Putin honors his pledge to stop Snowden harming what Putin called his "American partners," then at least further leaks will be prevented. Were the Russians in frustration to put their uninvited guest on a plane to Ecuador or Cuba, the next morning's newspapers might contain additional revelations

That is the story from cnn.com as it pertains to Snowden. Now affecting people that hate to see people’s human right trampled, What is the story of Putin and Gay bashing laws? These whole set of laws against gays came out of no where since gays were being tolerated. The thing is they were being tolerated by the urbanites the same ones that don’t like Putin because they have access to more information and it seems schooling. They are the ones that Putin cannot impress and is not the ones he seeks any sort of backing. 

What I am trying to say in that respect the Snowden incident and the newly enacted anti gay laws are connected and the connection is Putin and Obama. You will notice the lack of comments directly from  the president in regards to gays in Russia. With Snowden, thanks to Obama’s following the wrong advise in closing all doors to Snowden which pushed him to Putin for help. In the case of gays Putin gives Obama, the president that likes gays and the only president that comes out for gay marriage ever, another black eye. My mind wonders and I know some will disagree, if Snowden would have been allowed to seek refuse in Venezuela let’s say, I doubt that the gay issue would have come up the way it has in Russia. These are two artificial (political) incidents which have gained life of their own thanks to Putin trying to score with the people that he wants to impress and against a gay president.

Adam Gonzalez

source: CNN