The West and Russia

I have found a way to write and send a post with my mobile phone. It's the first time so bear with me.

The West has a strange, almost schizophrenic attitude towards Russia.

Russia is a country which has spontaneously rejected communism and set to a path to democracy.

It's not perfect but the West should support it. Instead it seems to prefer to attack it at the first opportunity.

On the other hand, Western countries are mesmerized by the "Arab Spring" and believe that it is driven by pro-democracy fighters, whereas in reality the countries involved, be they Egypt, Lybia, Tunisia, Syria or Yemen, are going further away from democracy into the hands of radical Islamists.

The West also has as allies countries like Pakistan and Saudi Arabia , fully Sharia-compliant, and Turkey, another nation that is increasingly becoming Islamist.

It's true that the most unlikely and unholy alliances can be made for tactical reasons, but the West here is guilty of really bad double standards.

Romney, at the Republican National Convention, where he delivered an overall good speech , said that Russia and Putin should be shown some muscle.

I think that the West is doing exactly the opposite of what it should do.

Between the principles on which the West is based and the principles of Islam there is a logical contradiction. Logical contradictions cannot be solved any more than a circle can be squared. So there is no point in our attempts to find a dialogue with Islamic countries and in our being overoptimistic and excessively enthusiastic about developments there.

But, unlike logical contradictions, conflicts of interest can be solved with negotiation and compromise.

I think that there is a lot of prejudice and stereotyping about Russia in the West, where it's seen as the old enemy, the Soviet Union which is not any more.

The Pussy Riot case was immediately viewed as an attack on free speech by an oppressive regime, whereas it was nothing of the sort.

Russia and the West have a lot in common. Russia is a Christian nation, and it faces more Muslim threats than we do in the West. There are Islamic terrorists in the North Caucasus and in other parts of the country.