Russian lawmakers authorize Putin to use military force outside the country

[robkelk]

The more things change, the more they stay the same...

Propaganda from the Russo-Japanese War (specifically 1904) showing Russia as an all-consuming monster:



(Larger copy available on Wikimedia Commons)

Note who's willing to take up arms, who's turning their backs on the situation... and who's already fallen.


EDIT:

Since I seem to recall some of the younger folks have trouble reading script writing, here's a transcription - spelling errors and all - of the text in the upper-left corner of the image.

'Black Octpus' is a name newly given to Russia by a certain prominent Englishman. For the black octpus is so avaricious, that he stretches out his eight arms in all directions, and seizes up every thing that comes within his reach. But as it sometimes happens he gets wounded seriously even by a small fish, owing to his too much covetousness. Indeed, a Japanese proverb says: "great avarice is like unselfishness." We Japanese need not to say much on the cause of the present war. Suffice it to say, that the further existence of the Black Octpus will depend entirely on how he comes out of this war. The Japanese fleet has already practically annihilated Russia's naval power in the Orient. The Japanese army is about to win a signal victory over Russia in Corea and Manchuria. And when ............... St. Petersburg? Wait & see! The ugly Black Octpus! Hurrah! Hurrah! for Japan.
March, 1904. Kisaburo Ohara.

Heh - "We Japanese need not to say much on the cause of the present war." That's because the Japanese fired the first shot in that war. Granted, both sides thought they had casus belli.