(Thank you Bill Roggio at the fourth rail.) Monday's Winds of War briefing picked up the Reporters Without Borders report on torture of imprisoned Iranian bloggers. The briefing also carries a link to a Human Rights Watch report via the Iran Press News site. The first paragraph of the report:
"(New York, January 6, 2005) -- After testifying to a presidential commission about their torture during detention, a group of Iranian journalists have received death threats from judicial officials under Tehran chief prosecutor Saeed Mortazavi, Human Rights Watch said today."
Take note: that's an American presidential commission. Pundita can understand that the lily-livered American feminist movement lives in terror of the mullathugs--but the American news profession? American Op-ed writers, print news editors and TV news production teams please SPEAK UP LOUDER.
Tuesday, January 11
Monday, January 10
Barney and the Theoretical Bubble Machine
"Pundita! I just read your last post! Ever since I started listening to Coast to Coast I KNEW there had to be a machine somewhere in all this! Can you tell me about the Theoretical Bubble Machine? Does it have anything to do with the Illuminati or the Club of Rome?
PS: I got a strange letter from the post office about the shrimp gumbo I sent you for the raccoon. Maybe I didn't seal the container right but I thought the sentence about detonating the package was a little extreme. Today I sent crabcakes. I wrapped them in aluminum foil and packed them in dry ice so there's NO WAY they can leak or stink. I included some waterbugs for the crows but I made sure they can't get out of the plastic bag.
PPS: I'm getting more sleep since I switched to the Malibu Diet and took your advice about being more philosophical about geopolitics.
PPPS: Ever since I visited the World Socialist Web Site I've been having dreams about a sinister looking man in a cheap leather coat. I wonder if he's Trotsky. Anyhow, could you tell me what brand of demon repellent you sprayed around before you visited the website?
[Signed] Better Rested in St. Louis"
Dear BRISL:
Don't worry; he was probably only Beria. The Club of Rome....there's a flash from the past...So you want to know about the Theoretical Bubble Machine, eh? The prototype was built by Roosevelt's Brain Trust. A clunky model using a primitive computing machine was put together in the bar at Bretton Woods. This was after World War II. The model was refined after Zbigniew Brzezinski saw the Lawrence Welk show.
From then on, the Theoretical Bubble Machine had a very colorful history. Harvard professors would pay fraternities in beer kegs to steal the machine from the Council of Foreign Relations and restore it to its supposedly proper place at Harvard. Then the council would organize commando units from unemployed policy experts to steal back the machine. These commandos were paid quite literally in peanuts and ID tags that allowed them into embassy parties serving a buffet.
In the mid-80s Brzezinski and Henry Kissinger organized a raid that brought the Theoretical Bubble Machine to the basement of the Center for Strategic & International Studies. I think some moonlighting employees from Langley and a Sony vice president were involved in that caper.
The possum told me that she remembers a tale her mother told about strange doings one night at Foggy Bottom about 10 years ago (these would be possum years, so I am not sure about the date), so the machine may have ended up at the State Department for a time. But the story is that Samuel Huntington (a Brzezinski disciple) managed to get the machine back to Harvard, whereupon it was promptly stolen back by the Council on Foreign Relations.
The whereabouts of the machine became somewhat murky at that point, but what's known for certain is that in late 2001 Douglas Feith organized a raid that brought the machine to the Pentagon.
Here the squirrel picks up the narrative...on second thought, Pundita will summarize. One day Barney accompanied President Bush on a visit to the Pentagon and while Bush was deep in conversation Barney began wandering around looking for a place to relieve himself, as he has a penchant for doing.
The upshot is that since that day, White House policy has been run by something called, "events on the ground." Within hours, Paul Bremer (a Kissinger disciple) was yanked back to Washington from Baghdad and screamed at until he agreed to step outside his theoretical bubble, Iyad Allawi was pressed into service, and here we are today.
As for the Theoretical Bubble Machine, it's still out for repairs. It seems the composition of the....liquid that spilled into the machine messed up the polka rhythm of the bubbles.
PS: I got a strange letter from the post office about the shrimp gumbo I sent you for the raccoon. Maybe I didn't seal the container right but I thought the sentence about detonating the package was a little extreme. Today I sent crabcakes. I wrapped them in aluminum foil and packed them in dry ice so there's NO WAY they can leak or stink. I included some waterbugs for the crows but I made sure they can't get out of the plastic bag.
PPS: I'm getting more sleep since I switched to the Malibu Diet and took your advice about being more philosophical about geopolitics.
PPPS: Ever since I visited the World Socialist Web Site I've been having dreams about a sinister looking man in a cheap leather coat. I wonder if he's Trotsky. Anyhow, could you tell me what brand of demon repellent you sprayed around before you visited the website?
[Signed] Better Rested in St. Louis"
Dear BRISL:
Don't worry; he was probably only Beria. The Club of Rome....there's a flash from the past...So you want to know about the Theoretical Bubble Machine, eh? The prototype was built by Roosevelt's Brain Trust. A clunky model using a primitive computing machine was put together in the bar at Bretton Woods. This was after World War II. The model was refined after Zbigniew Brzezinski saw the Lawrence Welk show.
From then on, the Theoretical Bubble Machine had a very colorful history. Harvard professors would pay fraternities in beer kegs to steal the machine from the Council of Foreign Relations and restore it to its supposedly proper place at Harvard. Then the council would organize commando units from unemployed policy experts to steal back the machine. These commandos were paid quite literally in peanuts and ID tags that allowed them into embassy parties serving a buffet.
In the mid-80s Brzezinski and Henry Kissinger organized a raid that brought the Theoretical Bubble Machine to the basement of the Center for Strategic & International Studies. I think some moonlighting employees from Langley and a Sony vice president were involved in that caper.
The possum told me that she remembers a tale her mother told about strange doings one night at Foggy Bottom about 10 years ago (these would be possum years, so I am not sure about the date), so the machine may have ended up at the State Department for a time. But the story is that Samuel Huntington (a Brzezinski disciple) managed to get the machine back to Harvard, whereupon it was promptly stolen back by the Council on Foreign Relations.
The whereabouts of the machine became somewhat murky at that point, but what's known for certain is that in late 2001 Douglas Feith organized a raid that brought the machine to the Pentagon.
Here the squirrel picks up the narrative...on second thought, Pundita will summarize. One day Barney accompanied President Bush on a visit to the Pentagon and while Bush was deep in conversation Barney began wandering around looking for a place to relieve himself, as he has a penchant for doing.
The upshot is that since that day, White House policy has been run by something called, "events on the ground." Within hours, Paul Bremer (a Kissinger disciple) was yanked back to Washington from Baghdad and screamed at until he agreed to step outside his theoretical bubble, Iyad Allawi was pressed into service, and here we are today.
As for the Theoretical Bubble Machine, it's still out for repairs. It seems the composition of the....liquid that spilled into the machine messed up the polka rhythm of the bubbles.
Sunday, January 9
Banana Split and Trifle
"Re your last post and the letter from June . I'm surprised you didn't call her out on her implied observation that it's okay for the US to intervene in another country's affairs whenever we perceive the possibility of election fraud. Also, the situation with Ukraine is so complicated it's easy to see how Max Boot could confuse separate issues.
[Signed] Chicago Dan"
Dear Chicago Dan:
Pundita thought she dealt with the point by observing that the US should not engage in the practice of unjustified and unsolicited intervention. Regarding your observation about Max Boot, are you making a little joke with Pundita? Mr. Boot is not confused. Ever since the Theoretical Bubble Machine went out for repairs, Boot and Opinion Experts like him have been reduced to the vocation of chef. Mr. Boot concocted a Trifle that layers different issues into a sickeningly sweet glop he called The Ukraine Miracle. After you swallow the stuff you'll belch, "Isn't democracy wonderful?" for days.
Yes it is wonderful, but what State was up to in Ukraine wasn't about democracy. All you really need to know about Max Boot is that he's a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. This is the same Council on Foreign Relations that is trying to claw their way back into influence at the White House. This is also the same council that installed the Theoretical Bubble Machine in their basement after World War II.
As to why the anti-Bush Los Angeles Times would publish Boot's Op-ed piece--any number of reasons. They might be trying to stay on the good side of their sources at the State Department. They might be trying to embarrass Bush by taking a whack at Putin. But of one thing you can be certain: The Los Angeles Times has no interest in gathering and presenting the facts on the Ukraine situation.
The LAT is not alone; no American newspaper informed their readers of the unfolding situation in Ukraine, which meant that TV newscasters didn't pick up on the story until after the situation in Ukraine blew up. Because of that, Americans who didn't listen to the John Batchelor program in 2003 and 2004 didn't have a clue as to the mess building in Ukraine. Not until the UK's Guardian Unlimited broke the story about State meddling in the Ukraine election. That didn't happen until after the first election round in Ukraine and the situation had blown up.
Then Pat Buchanan read the Guardian report and set up a howl on some website rag (Word Net Daily, if Pundita recalls). Only then did a couple US newspapers (Christian Science Monitor and Washington Post) dip their pinkie in the situation just enough to give readers an idea that the US was somehow "involved" in Ukraine.
This is why Pundita was forced into the ungraceful position of crawling to a socialist website run by a bunch of Trotskyites, just to scrape background on what Foggy Bottom has been up to in Ukraine these past few years.
Al Qaeda is always telling people that America is dangerous. You bet we're dangerous. Few things are more dangerous than a lone superpower with a Banana Republic press.
Now that we have that off our chest--State has made lemonade out of lemons with Bush's war on terror. At first, State was horrified that Bush radically altered US foreign policy after 9/11. But once they heard Bush's talk about democracy being the best antidote to terrorism, State was off and running. The machinations against Russia and in particular the scheme to set Yuschenko in power could be recast in the language of "Liberty's Century."
The tragedy is that there were good democracy programs at work in Ukraine, and which were sponsored by Americans not connected with State or any US government agency. As Pundita pointed out before, these Americans were invited by Kuchma's government, so these programs were not an "intervention" and most certainty not unsolicited.
But now, everything US citizens did to help democracy in Ukraine is tainted. All that donated money, all that hard work--tainted. Those Americans were used; they were manipulated into a situation they understood very poorly, if at all. Members of Congress and the esteemed American Bar Association, please take note.
American attorneys must learn not to shut off their brain and research department when they receive a request for pro bono assistance, just because the request is coming from foreigners who have mastered the Democracy Rap. And as the squirrel never tires of telling Pundita, we all need to get up a little earlier in the day than the State Department. And State needs to get up earlier in the day than their EU counterparts.
It seems that American ingenuity and compassion are matched only by our naivete. We need to wise up, for the world's lone superpower nation can no longer afford to be informed at the level of a Banana Republic about doings outside our shores.
This said, there is no shame in being outsmarted by oligarchs. The International Monetary Fund, which doesn't have bananas sprouting from their ears, was ripped off to the tune of $600 million (or $200 million, depending on which source) by oligarchs laboring for the Ukraine Central Bank under Yushchenko's leadership. Money says it's unlikely the IMF would ever have wised up, if one of those clan members hadn't ratted out other clan members.
This is just why Pundita is grateful to her foreign policy team. Sometimes it takes feathered bipeds and furry mammals to bring humans back to earth. The first thing the possum asks, whenever a foreign policy question is brought to the table, is whether a chief is involved. The second question is always, "Which clans" are involved in the situation.
Readers who worry that this way of viewing the doings of foreigners will lead to prejudice should be advised that one must be prejudiced against lobbing bombs and USD millions at the wrong situations.
In Afghanistan the US military learned the hard way that in those parts "cousin" is a euphemism for an enemy. The military began to learn this aspect of Afghan clan society after they bombed innocent civilians to kingdom come, on the "intelligence" provided by a cousin getting even with another cousin.
Yushchenko's clan got one over on us. Let's leave it at that. However, to put this in context, the ship had sailed even before reporters at the World Socialist Website caught up with the story. You would have to go back to Kuchma's rise to power and his dispute with Yuschenko to grasp the story--but all the details are not available. To the extent we're learning bits and pieces of the story, it's because Kuchma and his supporters began singing after they learned that ballot stuffing might not work to put Yanukovich in power.
What's done is done, except for the investigation we should conduct, and which Pundita mentioned in her prior post. But we should take extensive notes, in hopes this will raise flags because we're busy all over the world bringing the miracle of democracy to peoples we don't understand. Flags shouldn't stop up us from trying, but it's written nowhere that we have to wise up through hard knocks. There is an informed way to help. Taking this tack will save Americans, and the people we're trying help, untold grief.
[Signed] Chicago Dan"
Dear Chicago Dan:
Pundita thought she dealt with the point by observing that the US should not engage in the practice of unjustified and unsolicited intervention. Regarding your observation about Max Boot, are you making a little joke with Pundita? Mr. Boot is not confused. Ever since the Theoretical Bubble Machine went out for repairs, Boot and Opinion Experts like him have been reduced to the vocation of chef. Mr. Boot concocted a Trifle that layers different issues into a sickeningly sweet glop he called The Ukraine Miracle. After you swallow the stuff you'll belch, "Isn't democracy wonderful?" for days.
Yes it is wonderful, but what State was up to in Ukraine wasn't about democracy. All you really need to know about Max Boot is that he's a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. This is the same Council on Foreign Relations that is trying to claw their way back into influence at the White House. This is also the same council that installed the Theoretical Bubble Machine in their basement after World War II.
As to why the anti-Bush Los Angeles Times would publish Boot's Op-ed piece--any number of reasons. They might be trying to stay on the good side of their sources at the State Department. They might be trying to embarrass Bush by taking a whack at Putin. But of one thing you can be certain: The Los Angeles Times has no interest in gathering and presenting the facts on the Ukraine situation.
The LAT is not alone; no American newspaper informed their readers of the unfolding situation in Ukraine, which meant that TV newscasters didn't pick up on the story until after the situation in Ukraine blew up. Because of that, Americans who didn't listen to the John Batchelor program in 2003 and 2004 didn't have a clue as to the mess building in Ukraine. Not until the UK's Guardian Unlimited broke the story about State meddling in the Ukraine election. That didn't happen until after the first election round in Ukraine and the situation had blown up.
Then Pat Buchanan read the Guardian report and set up a howl on some website rag (Word Net Daily, if Pundita recalls). Only then did a couple US newspapers (Christian Science Monitor and Washington Post) dip their pinkie in the situation just enough to give readers an idea that the US was somehow "involved" in Ukraine.
This is why Pundita was forced into the ungraceful position of crawling to a socialist website run by a bunch of Trotskyites, just to scrape background on what Foggy Bottom has been up to in Ukraine these past few years.
Al Qaeda is always telling people that America is dangerous. You bet we're dangerous. Few things are more dangerous than a lone superpower with a Banana Republic press.
Now that we have that off our chest--State has made lemonade out of lemons with Bush's war on terror. At first, State was horrified that Bush radically altered US foreign policy after 9/11. But once they heard Bush's talk about democracy being the best antidote to terrorism, State was off and running. The machinations against Russia and in particular the scheme to set Yuschenko in power could be recast in the language of "Liberty's Century."
The tragedy is that there were good democracy programs at work in Ukraine, and which were sponsored by Americans not connected with State or any US government agency. As Pundita pointed out before, these Americans were invited by Kuchma's government, so these programs were not an "intervention" and most certainty not unsolicited.
But now, everything US citizens did to help democracy in Ukraine is tainted. All that donated money, all that hard work--tainted. Those Americans were used; they were manipulated into a situation they understood very poorly, if at all. Members of Congress and the esteemed American Bar Association, please take note.
American attorneys must learn not to shut off their brain and research department when they receive a request for pro bono assistance, just because the request is coming from foreigners who have mastered the Democracy Rap. And as the squirrel never tires of telling Pundita, we all need to get up a little earlier in the day than the State Department. And State needs to get up earlier in the day than their EU counterparts.
It seems that American ingenuity and compassion are matched only by our naivete. We need to wise up, for the world's lone superpower nation can no longer afford to be informed at the level of a Banana Republic about doings outside our shores.
This said, there is no shame in being outsmarted by oligarchs. The International Monetary Fund, which doesn't have bananas sprouting from their ears, was ripped off to the tune of $600 million (or $200 million, depending on which source) by oligarchs laboring for the Ukraine Central Bank under Yushchenko's leadership. Money says it's unlikely the IMF would ever have wised up, if one of those clan members hadn't ratted out other clan members.
This is just why Pundita is grateful to her foreign policy team. Sometimes it takes feathered bipeds and furry mammals to bring humans back to earth. The first thing the possum asks, whenever a foreign policy question is brought to the table, is whether a chief is involved. The second question is always, "Which clans" are involved in the situation.
Readers who worry that this way of viewing the doings of foreigners will lead to prejudice should be advised that one must be prejudiced against lobbing bombs and USD millions at the wrong situations.
In Afghanistan the US military learned the hard way that in those parts "cousin" is a euphemism for an enemy. The military began to learn this aspect of Afghan clan society after they bombed innocent civilians to kingdom come, on the "intelligence" provided by a cousin getting even with another cousin.
Yushchenko's clan got one over on us. Let's leave it at that. However, to put this in context, the ship had sailed even before reporters at the World Socialist Website caught up with the story. You would have to go back to Kuchma's rise to power and his dispute with Yuschenko to grasp the story--but all the details are not available. To the extent we're learning bits and pieces of the story, it's because Kuchma and his supporters began singing after they learned that ballot stuffing might not work to put Yanukovich in power.
What's done is done, except for the investigation we should conduct, and which Pundita mentioned in her prior post. But we should take extensive notes, in hopes this will raise flags because we're busy all over the world bringing the miracle of democracy to peoples we don't understand. Flags shouldn't stop up us from trying, but it's written nowhere that we have to wise up through hard knocks. There is an informed way to help. Taking this tack will save Americans, and the people we're trying help, untold grief.
How many broken eggs does it take?
... if the US had played it straight Pundita would not be writing all these posts on Ukraine. We are within our rights to attempt to induce and even pressure governments who receive our aid into adopting measures we favor. We are not within our rights to pull a sleight of hand in the name of democracy in order to set our favored candidate in power.
"Pundita, I still think America's intervention in Ukraine was, on the whole, a good thing. There was tremendous fraud by Yanukovich's Putin-backed supporters during the first round of election. Max Boot pointed out that the American Bar Association spent $400,000 to train Ukrainian judges in election law, and that five supreme court judges who benefited from the training voted to overturn the fraudulent results of the Nov. 21 balloting and to hold the revote, which led to Yushchenko's victory."
[Signed] June in Cincinnati
Dear June:
At that juncture, the judges in question would have voted for eight days in a week; Yushchenko's forces mobilized mobs to gather outside the court building; clearly they threatened to storm the building if the vote didn't go as they wanted. That would have been the match to the tinder, which is why the judges voted on a situation that was still very murky.
Boot's argument mixes two distinct issues; by doing so, he glosses US intervention in Ukraine's affairs.
Boot lists the aid money/programs that the US government gave, and which various US organizations donated to aid in strengthening Ukraine's democratic processes. He presents these in support of his argument that, "There was nothing nefarious about the U.S. intervention in Ukraine, which was designed to promote democracy, not any particular candidate."
However, the US-sponsored democracy programs and aid/donations were not interventions -- at least, not on their face. They were made at the invitation of the sitting Ukraine government, and carried out with the government's full approval. Oddly, Boot's writing implicitly recognizes that fact by citing that the aid in question had been over the period of two years--which was prior to the election.
But there was US government intervention in the democratic process in Ukraine and their affairs of state. How and why Washington intervened in Ukraine's affairs rests on complex issues, which means the story is easily glossed over and lost in the shuffle of the drama surrounding the contested election. One part of the story is summarized under the heading "How the change of power in Ukraine was prepared" in the World Socialist Web Site article I cited in an earlier post. The best I can do is encourage you to read the story or read it again.
The story does not begin with the Ukraine election. It begins with Kuchma's fall from favor in Washington. After reading the article, please don't write Pundita to accuse Dick Cheney of being behind it all. Remember, this is the World Socialist Web Site we're dealing with. Oil and gas were part of it. But Kuchma shut down the offending pipeline.
One aspect of the story not mentioned by that particular WSWS article is Kuchma's act to sell a government-owned company (to a relative, if I recall correctly) in order to prevent the company from being taken over by foreign investors. From this distance, that was a questionable way to keep a key company out of the hands of foreign investors, but it may have been a temporary measure made under extreme time pressure.
In any case, the action should not have called forth a decision among foreign powers to bring down Kuchma's government. Yet that seems to have been the case--that, and his government's interest in creating an alliance with Russia and other FSU to form their own version of the EU. Whether or not such an alliance was made with pressure from Russia, that is not justification for foreign powers to bring down a government and set their own man in place.
Kuchma attempted to steer Ukraine on a course that was as independent as possible from Russia's influence and he was doing it with Putin's blessing. But from the EU and US side, his spark of independence was, as the dramatists say, his undoing.
Yet Kuchma and his hand-picked candidate, Yanukovich, did everything in their power, within reason, to stay on the right side of Washington. Why? Because they saw the advantage and because Vladimir Putin wanted them to. Yes, this is the same Vladimir Putin who stuck his neck out to tell the world of his support for Bush's reelection. Putin was under the impression at the time that the Bush administration was honestly trying to forge better relations with Russia. This would work to Ukraine's advantage, and Kuchma and Yanukovich knew this. They also knew that Russia has a big stake in Ukraine, and always will. The reverse is also true.
The Yuschenko forces and their American and European backers claim that Moscow intervened in Ukraine's election; that they threw much more money into Yanukovich's campaign than the Americans and Europeans threw to Yuschenko, and that Yanukovich's forces rigged the voting. These accusations are two separate issues.
After Kuchma and Yanukovich fell from grace in Washington, they knew there would be no chance of Yanukovich winning the election, given the US/Europe backing of Yuschenko. So they asked Moscow for financial help.
Is that democratic? Well, it's unwise, if you want to hold onto your democracy, to ask foreigners to contribute to your election campaign. Pundita doesn't know the election law in this case. If Ukraine law allowed, then the Orange candidate had as much right to solicit funds from Americans/ Europeans as the Blue candidate had to ask Russia for funds.
The other issue is ballot stuffing. There were abuses on both sides, although it seems that the Blue candidate (Russia's pick) outstripped his opponent in ballot stuffing during the first election round.
However, the US/ European forces who backed Yuschenko were taking no chances. They mobilized even before the first election was called in Yanukovich's favor, which set in play the scenario that led to the mobs outside the Ukraine Supreme Court.
Ironically, if the US had not intervened, we would have supported democracy and kept our reputation intact. This is because at the point of election observation we were above reproach. US observers had been invited -- I repeat, invited -- to observe the election and to speak up in the event of observed balloting fraud.
In short, if the US had played it straight Pundita would not be writing all these posts on Ukraine. We are within our rights to attempt to induce and even pressure governments who receive our aid into adopting measures we favor. We are not within our rights to pull a sleight of hand in the name of democracy in order to set our favored candidate in power.
I don't want to hear that Putin was doing the same. What is this, kindergarten? Here in the adult world, it's not okay to do what the other guy is doing just because he's doing it. Either the US government screwed up or didn't care that they shoved Kuchma toward Moscow after they decided to back Yuschenko. Either way, they made an unnecessary enemy of Kuchma, who then turned to Moscow. That might have gotten his guy Yanukovich a loss under fair conditions, i.e., conditions that did not see outside money in play, but we'll never know.
The question of Russia's intervention is their matter and the Ukraine government's matter to investigate. The question of European intervention is the matter for the EU parties involved and Ukraine to consider. It will be a cold day in hell before Yushchenko's government orders an investigation of US actions. But what Americans need to investigate is whether:
> funds were siphoned from US democracy programs to finance Yushchenko's campaign and the post-election mobilization against the contested vote.
> George Soros acted "without portfolio" at the State Department's behest with regard to his part in financing Yushchenko's campaign and the mobilization.
We need the investigation for two reasons. With regard to Soros, he is not an employee of the US Department of State. He has no position with any US government agency. He did act without portfolio for State during the Clinton administration, with Clinton's blessing.
If Mr. Soros's status has continued under the Bush administration, this needs to made clear to the American public. (From all accounts, Soros was never able to get his foot in the door of the Bush White House.)
If on the other hand, Soros and his connection(s) at State acted according to their own lights -- without guidance from the White House or Congress -- the connections at State need the riot act read to them.
The issue is one of accountability. Mr. Soros has a tendency to play Pied Piper. But when things go wrong, and they've gone wrong in Georgia and Serbia, he's not held accountable. This is because he has no official position with the US government. Particularly during a hot war this country can't afford to allow Pied Pipers to operate with the unofficial blessing of our foreign office.
The most important reason for conducting an investigation is the discrepancy between the dollar amounts that have been quoted with regard to US-sponsored democratic programs in Ukraine. Max Boot quotes the US version. The WSWS article highlighted above quotes Ukraine government sources:
That intervention by a foreign power in a country's affairs is "nefarious" almost pales beside the point that the intervention in this case mocks Bush's call for this to be liberty's century. It mocks every American who puts trust in the Bush administration to stand by the American people's commitment to promote democracy in the world. It mocks democracy.
The mess we got ourselves into in Ukraine was unnecessary, if the US had simply dealt from the top of the deck; i.e., stayed aloof from the fray until called upon to report on any observed election fraud. Then would have been the time to lodge complaints with Russia and the Europeans who involved themselves in the election.
Those who say that you can't make an omelette without breaking eggs are correct, but just how big an omelette are we talking about? If it's 65 million dollars worth -- do we need to break that many eggs to serve the cause of democracy, in a land where the average monthly salary is between $30 and $100?
"Pundita, I still think America's intervention in Ukraine was, on the whole, a good thing. There was tremendous fraud by Yanukovich's Putin-backed supporters during the first round of election. Max Boot pointed out that the American Bar Association spent $400,000 to train Ukrainian judges in election law, and that five supreme court judges who benefited from the training voted to overturn the fraudulent results of the Nov. 21 balloting and to hold the revote, which led to Yushchenko's victory."
[Signed] June in Cincinnati
Dear June:
At that juncture, the judges in question would have voted for eight days in a week; Yushchenko's forces mobilized mobs to gather outside the court building; clearly they threatened to storm the building if the vote didn't go as they wanted. That would have been the match to the tinder, which is why the judges voted on a situation that was still very murky.
Boot's argument mixes two distinct issues; by doing so, he glosses US intervention in Ukraine's affairs.
Boot lists the aid money/programs that the US government gave, and which various US organizations donated to aid in strengthening Ukraine's democratic processes. He presents these in support of his argument that, "There was nothing nefarious about the U.S. intervention in Ukraine, which was designed to promote democracy, not any particular candidate."
However, the US-sponsored democracy programs and aid/donations were not interventions -- at least, not on their face. They were made at the invitation of the sitting Ukraine government, and carried out with the government's full approval. Oddly, Boot's writing implicitly recognizes that fact by citing that the aid in question had been over the period of two years--which was prior to the election.
But there was US government intervention in the democratic process in Ukraine and their affairs of state. How and why Washington intervened in Ukraine's affairs rests on complex issues, which means the story is easily glossed over and lost in the shuffle of the drama surrounding the contested election. One part of the story is summarized under the heading "How the change of power in Ukraine was prepared" in the World Socialist Web Site article I cited in an earlier post. The best I can do is encourage you to read the story or read it again.
The story does not begin with the Ukraine election. It begins with Kuchma's fall from favor in Washington. After reading the article, please don't write Pundita to accuse Dick Cheney of being behind it all. Remember, this is the World Socialist Web Site we're dealing with. Oil and gas were part of it. But Kuchma shut down the offending pipeline.
One aspect of the story not mentioned by that particular WSWS article is Kuchma's act to sell a government-owned company (to a relative, if I recall correctly) in order to prevent the company from being taken over by foreign investors. From this distance, that was a questionable way to keep a key company out of the hands of foreign investors, but it may have been a temporary measure made under extreme time pressure.
In any case, the action should not have called forth a decision among foreign powers to bring down Kuchma's government. Yet that seems to have been the case--that, and his government's interest in creating an alliance with Russia and other FSU to form their own version of the EU. Whether or not such an alliance was made with pressure from Russia, that is not justification for foreign powers to bring down a government and set their own man in place.
Kuchma attempted to steer Ukraine on a course that was as independent as possible from Russia's influence and he was doing it with Putin's blessing. But from the EU and US side, his spark of independence was, as the dramatists say, his undoing.
Yet Kuchma and his hand-picked candidate, Yanukovich, did everything in their power, within reason, to stay on the right side of Washington. Why? Because they saw the advantage and because Vladimir Putin wanted them to. Yes, this is the same Vladimir Putin who stuck his neck out to tell the world of his support for Bush's reelection. Putin was under the impression at the time that the Bush administration was honestly trying to forge better relations with Russia. This would work to Ukraine's advantage, and Kuchma and Yanukovich knew this. They also knew that Russia has a big stake in Ukraine, and always will. The reverse is also true.
The Yuschenko forces and their American and European backers claim that Moscow intervened in Ukraine's election; that they threw much more money into Yanukovich's campaign than the Americans and Europeans threw to Yuschenko, and that Yanukovich's forces rigged the voting. These accusations are two separate issues.
After Kuchma and Yanukovich fell from grace in Washington, they knew there would be no chance of Yanukovich winning the election, given the US/Europe backing of Yuschenko. So they asked Moscow for financial help.
Is that democratic? Well, it's unwise, if you want to hold onto your democracy, to ask foreigners to contribute to your election campaign. Pundita doesn't know the election law in this case. If Ukraine law allowed, then the Orange candidate had as much right to solicit funds from Americans/ Europeans as the Blue candidate had to ask Russia for funds.
The other issue is ballot stuffing. There were abuses on both sides, although it seems that the Blue candidate (Russia's pick) outstripped his opponent in ballot stuffing during the first election round.
However, the US/ European forces who backed Yuschenko were taking no chances. They mobilized even before the first election was called in Yanukovich's favor, which set in play the scenario that led to the mobs outside the Ukraine Supreme Court.
Ironically, if the US had not intervened, we would have supported democracy and kept our reputation intact. This is because at the point of election observation we were above reproach. US observers had been invited -- I repeat, invited -- to observe the election and to speak up in the event of observed balloting fraud.
In short, if the US had played it straight Pundita would not be writing all these posts on Ukraine. We are within our rights to attempt to induce and even pressure governments who receive our aid into adopting measures we favor. We are not within our rights to pull a sleight of hand in the name of democracy in order to set our favored candidate in power.
I don't want to hear that Putin was doing the same. What is this, kindergarten? Here in the adult world, it's not okay to do what the other guy is doing just because he's doing it. Either the US government screwed up or didn't care that they shoved Kuchma toward Moscow after they decided to back Yuschenko. Either way, they made an unnecessary enemy of Kuchma, who then turned to Moscow. That might have gotten his guy Yanukovich a loss under fair conditions, i.e., conditions that did not see outside money in play, but we'll never know.
The question of Russia's intervention is their matter and the Ukraine government's matter to investigate. The question of European intervention is the matter for the EU parties involved and Ukraine to consider. It will be a cold day in hell before Yushchenko's government orders an investigation of US actions. But what Americans need to investigate is whether:
> funds were siphoned from US democracy programs to finance Yushchenko's campaign and the post-election mobilization against the contested vote.
> George Soros acted "without portfolio" at the State Department's behest with regard to his part in financing Yushchenko's campaign and the mobilization.
We need the investigation for two reasons. With regard to Soros, he is not an employee of the US Department of State. He has no position with any US government agency. He did act without portfolio for State during the Clinton administration, with Clinton's blessing.
If Mr. Soros's status has continued under the Bush administration, this needs to made clear to the American public. (From all accounts, Soros was never able to get his foot in the door of the Bush White House.)
If on the other hand, Soros and his connection(s) at State acted according to their own lights -- without guidance from the White House or Congress -- the connections at State need the riot act read to them.
The issue is one of accountability. Mr. Soros has a tendency to play Pied Piper. But when things go wrong, and they've gone wrong in Georgia and Serbia, he's not held accountable. This is because he has no official position with the US government. Particularly during a hot war this country can't afford to allow Pied Pipers to operate with the unofficial blessing of our foreign office.
The most important reason for conducting an investigation is the discrepancy between the dollar amounts that have been quoted with regard to US-sponsored democratic programs in Ukraine. Max Boot quotes the US version. The WSWS article highlighted above quotes Ukraine government sources:
In the past two years alone, the American government has spent more than 65 million dollars to help the Ukrainian opposition to power. This has been confirmed within the past few days by government representatives. Additional millions came from private donators such as the Soros Foundation, and European governments.Yushchenko's government might dispute the account but without a US inquiry the version provided the WSWS reporter will stand in Russia, in the portion of Ukraine that voted for Yanukovich, and in every country that is leery of US "democracy aid."
Naturally, these funds flowed indirectly to political parties. As the US government stresses, they were made available to serve in general the “promotion of democracy.” It is an open secret that such funds benefited the opposition almost exclusively. The money went to institutes and non-governmental organisations that advise the opposition, assist it with the most modern technical aids and advertising techniques, and train election helpers. Visits paid by opposition leader Yushchenko to American politicians were also financed with these funds. Also funded in the same manner were the voter opinion polls, which were then held up as proof of election fraud by the government camp.
As well as exercising a general influence in the elections, these funds also serve to deepen corruption. Even if one excludes direct bribery, such sums in a country where average monthly wages are between $30 and $100 must have a corrupting effect.
That intervention by a foreign power in a country's affairs is "nefarious" almost pales beside the point that the intervention in this case mocks Bush's call for this to be liberty's century. It mocks every American who puts trust in the Bush administration to stand by the American people's commitment to promote democracy in the world. It mocks democracy.
The mess we got ourselves into in Ukraine was unnecessary, if the US had simply dealt from the top of the deck; i.e., stayed aloof from the fray until called upon to report on any observed election fraud. Then would have been the time to lodge complaints with Russia and the Europeans who involved themselves in the election.
Those who say that you can't make an omelette without breaking eggs are correct, but just how big an omelette are we talking about? If it's 65 million dollars worth -- do we need to break that many eggs to serve the cause of democracy, in a land where the average monthly salary is between $30 and $100?
Friday, January 7
Perhaps the mullathugs should have consulted with Dan Rather
Reporters Without Borders reports on the torture of imprisoned Iranian bloggers.
"We fear that the [Iranian] authorities are succeeding in purging the web of all critical content through brutality, intimidation and censorship. . ."
One never knows about human nature; it's possible the Tehran government wants to be toppled.
"We fear that the [Iranian] authorities are succeeding in purging the web of all critical content through brutality, intimidation and censorship. . ."
One never knows about human nature; it's possible the Tehran government wants to be toppled.
Thursday, January 6
Welfare-to-Work Program for Despots
"Pundita, I read your [Jan 5] blog on Gordon Prather. I think you're wrong to make light of him. He makes very serious charges against Bush's handling of nuclear proliferation and he uses highly technical language to do it. I wouldn't call that acting like a nanny.
[Signed] June in Cincinnati"
Dear June:
Pundita is not sure what's highly technical about the statement, "Bush has failed to support the IAEA-NPT regime in North Korea, Iraq, Iran, and elsewhere. Consequently, your chances of getting nuked in your jammies have gone way up."
But we concede your point when Dr. Prather discusses centrifuges and other aspects of nuclear weapons technology. However, foreign policy is not rocket science. Prather's main beef against Bush's Proliferation Security Initiative (PSI) is that it chases down what Prather calls "junk"--the kind of materials his expertise tells him do not pose a serious military threat to the USA. He's looking at the PSI from the viewpoint of military defense technology, which calls up the highly technical discussions.
Prather is one of many defense experts who enjoyed favor in Washington for decades. That's just why China got away with murder for decades. Every year, the White House and Congress asked the Pentagon the same question: Is China a military threat yet? Then the Pentagon consulted with experts on military systems and reported back, "Nope. Not yet."
Technically, and within the narrow limits of the question, the experts were correct. China was (and remains) way behind the United States in military systems. The same could be said for every other country. However, going back decades, China has had enough military power to allow the Chinese Communist Party to:
--Maintain a stranglehold on the Chinese and Tibetans and threaten Taiwan.
--Force Chinese into slave labor, which cranked out ultra-cheap products that the Western consumer snapped up.
--Stifle democracy movements in China.
--Sell or barter Chinese military technology, which was stolen from Western defense industries, to despotic governments who rule over peoples still trying to climb out of the Iron Age. That in turn helped those despots quash democracy movements and maintain a stranglehold on their people.
I'm not singling out China. The above formula was repeated all over the world--in every land that was the recipient of (World Bank) IDA loans and loans from the international banks, which follow in the wake of the World Bank in the way sharks follow in the wake of an ocean liner. The formula was repeated in every land that was the recipient of ongoing large-scale Western aid.
Put another way, the formula was repeated in every land that had some resource or strategic position that Western countries wanted or needed.
The results of the formula? It came down to the horrors in Indian Kashmir. It came down to genocide in Rwanda and Sudan and the bloodbath in DR Congo. It came down to government-engineered mass starvation in Ethiopia. It came down to the international megabusiness in heroin production and distribution. It came down to propping up North Korea's cannibalism supporting regime. It came down to blowing up buses of Israeli schoolchildren. It came down to the government-sponsored hanging and stoning of children in Iran. It came down to the day that Americans remember as 9/11.
So, yes--technically, the defense systems analysts are right: A country such as China or Saudi Arabia, Iran, Burma or Nigeria, etc. was never a match for America in the military sphere. It doesn't necessarily follow that governments far behind the US in military technology can't make their lands a hell on earth for their people and cost Americans blood and USD trillions.
If the formula sounds familiar--it's essentially the one that turned entire cities in America into virtual police states, as the only way to keep a lid on the crime that resulted from widescale drug addiction among the poor. Then one day, alert Americans started asking, "How is it that in a land of such wealth, we've got a permanent underclass of poor people who end up in a life of crime to support a drug habit?"
The answer was not hard to find. America had created a welfare system that was guaranteed to raise up generations of poor and keep them poor. The surprise was the extent of the connection between the welfare system, drug addiction, and crime.
Before the Food Stamp system went electronic, on any given Food Stamp distribution day in a city, you could see brokers working the lines formed outside the distribution points. The brokers offered cash on the spot for the Food Stamp booklets, which they bought at a steep discount on the face value of the stamps.
The same brokering went on in countless inner-city stores that were fronts for drug cartels. The profits from the resold Food Stamps helped fund wholesale illicit drug purchases. Then the drugs were sold on the street to the very people who sold their Food Stamps to the brokers.
Essentially the same situation has been going on in the world for a half century, and on a scale that mocks the mess the US welfare system spawned. We're making a big deal about the corruption found in the UN Oil for Food Program, but the billions skimmed from that program are a drop in the ocean. For decades, governments that received low-cost NGO loans for building projects routinely sent military operatives to steal the heavy equipment on the projects. Then the government would fence the stolen equipment in order to get hard currency to buy weapons.
That's just one scam out of countless for skimming hard currency off Western loans and aid. Then American taxpayers ask, "How do these dirt-poor governments find the money to buy so many weapons and support big armies?
So it's misleading to think of Bush's Proliferation Security Initiative as a purely military operation. The initiative is also a forceful way of telling all nations that the scams are being shut down.
If you're an Iranian despot spending $800 million to build a nuclear facility, which you swear to the international community is only for nuclear power--that's one issue. The other issue is that if you have that kind of money to spend on a 20th Century energy technology while the majority of your people still live in the 4th Century, America can no longer afford to participate in any way in the scam.
The 4th Century is generous. You saw pictures of what the city of Bam looked like before the earthquake. It was hard to tell the before-and-after pictures apart. What did those people need nuclear power for? An improved brand of candle wax and cow dung would have done it.
It's not necessarily talking trash, if a petroleum exporting government wants to install nuclear power plants. But one look at towns and most cities in Iran indicates what the Iranian government has done with their oil profits these past two decades. They plowed the greater portion into military spending. The distant second is Potemkin Village type projects, which look good on the glossy covers of reports the Iranian government shows to transnational banks they're wooing for loans. This is while the vast majority of Iranians live at borderline starvation. The Iran government had their excuse while Saddam was in power. Now we've removed the excuse.
So, Bush's PSI should not be conceived as interventionism--not given the amount of US tax dollars and investment funds that found their way into Western foreign aid and loans made by NGOs and international banks. And which propped up or created the despotic regimes we're dealing with today.
Of course the despots are huffy about Bush's tough love--as huffy as American welfare applicants when the Welfare-to-Work program was started and social workers began asking probing questions during the application interviews. Thus, the PSA campaign that put up posters all over America. The posters headlined, "Life is unfair. Get over it."
The PSI is a forceful way of saying the same to despots who spent decades whining to NGOs, "Oh we just poor developing country," every time they applied for a low-cost loan or defaulted on one.
Okay, if you're a poor developing country that depends on NGOs just to stay afloat, you don't need to be plowing your hard-earned hard currency into buying weapons material at gouge prices from black marketeers.
Granted, buying weapons is addictive because the Monkey See-Monkey Do aspect of human nature kicks in. If the government next door buys a fancy weapon system, your government wants the same system. So think of the PSI as helping depots break a habit they can't afford, and which Western taxes, defense industries and investment markets helped create.
The tough love extends to the contractors in EU nations who insist it's their right to sell weapons-related material and services to any country they want. This point also applies to Israel and FSU (former Soviet Union) contractors and African and Latin American governments that sell natural resources used in fancy weapons. Nobody is off the hook.
All such countries were on America's dole, in one form or another, for decades. If during the course they pulled themselves up enough to develop an export business from their national resources and defense industry, that's their right. It's also America's right to sit hard on allies and US foreign policy instruments (such as the World Bank) if firms in sponsoring countries insist on selling their wares and services to despots in developing countries.
Congress has not yet fully invoked the right, but Bush has made it clear that's where things are headed, if allies don't stop helping despots create regimes so well-armed and brutal they spawn insurgencies and terror groups, which falls back on America and every other democratic government.
Bush is leaving it to our Foreign Service to find reasonably polite ways to put the above points to allies and trading partners. But make no mistake; Bush wasn't kidding when he told the American people that our government would be fighting terrorism on many fronts, and in many ways that Americans would not hear announced on the nightly news.
[Signed] June in Cincinnati"
Dear June:
Pundita is not sure what's highly technical about the statement, "Bush has failed to support the IAEA-NPT regime in North Korea, Iraq, Iran, and elsewhere. Consequently, your chances of getting nuked in your jammies have gone way up."
But we concede your point when Dr. Prather discusses centrifuges and other aspects of nuclear weapons technology. However, foreign policy is not rocket science. Prather's main beef against Bush's Proliferation Security Initiative (PSI) is that it chases down what Prather calls "junk"--the kind of materials his expertise tells him do not pose a serious military threat to the USA. He's looking at the PSI from the viewpoint of military defense technology, which calls up the highly technical discussions.
Prather is one of many defense experts who enjoyed favor in Washington for decades. That's just why China got away with murder for decades. Every year, the White House and Congress asked the Pentagon the same question: Is China a military threat yet? Then the Pentagon consulted with experts on military systems and reported back, "Nope. Not yet."
Technically, and within the narrow limits of the question, the experts were correct. China was (and remains) way behind the United States in military systems. The same could be said for every other country. However, going back decades, China has had enough military power to allow the Chinese Communist Party to:
--Maintain a stranglehold on the Chinese and Tibetans and threaten Taiwan.
--Force Chinese into slave labor, which cranked out ultra-cheap products that the Western consumer snapped up.
--Stifle democracy movements in China.
--Sell or barter Chinese military technology, which was stolen from Western defense industries, to despotic governments who rule over peoples still trying to climb out of the Iron Age. That in turn helped those despots quash democracy movements and maintain a stranglehold on their people.
I'm not singling out China. The above formula was repeated all over the world--in every land that was the recipient of (World Bank) IDA loans and loans from the international banks, which follow in the wake of the World Bank in the way sharks follow in the wake of an ocean liner. The formula was repeated in every land that was the recipient of ongoing large-scale Western aid.
Put another way, the formula was repeated in every land that had some resource or strategic position that Western countries wanted or needed.
The results of the formula? It came down to the horrors in Indian Kashmir. It came down to genocide in Rwanda and Sudan and the bloodbath in DR Congo. It came down to government-engineered mass starvation in Ethiopia. It came down to the international megabusiness in heroin production and distribution. It came down to propping up North Korea's cannibalism supporting regime. It came down to blowing up buses of Israeli schoolchildren. It came down to the government-sponsored hanging and stoning of children in Iran. It came down to the day that Americans remember as 9/11.
So, yes--technically, the defense systems analysts are right: A country such as China or Saudi Arabia, Iran, Burma or Nigeria, etc. was never a match for America in the military sphere. It doesn't necessarily follow that governments far behind the US in military technology can't make their lands a hell on earth for their people and cost Americans blood and USD trillions.
If the formula sounds familiar--it's essentially the one that turned entire cities in America into virtual police states, as the only way to keep a lid on the crime that resulted from widescale drug addiction among the poor. Then one day, alert Americans started asking, "How is it that in a land of such wealth, we've got a permanent underclass of poor people who end up in a life of crime to support a drug habit?"
The answer was not hard to find. America had created a welfare system that was guaranteed to raise up generations of poor and keep them poor. The surprise was the extent of the connection between the welfare system, drug addiction, and crime.
Before the Food Stamp system went electronic, on any given Food Stamp distribution day in a city, you could see brokers working the lines formed outside the distribution points. The brokers offered cash on the spot for the Food Stamp booklets, which they bought at a steep discount on the face value of the stamps.
The same brokering went on in countless inner-city stores that were fronts for drug cartels. The profits from the resold Food Stamps helped fund wholesale illicit drug purchases. Then the drugs were sold on the street to the very people who sold their Food Stamps to the brokers.
Essentially the same situation has been going on in the world for a half century, and on a scale that mocks the mess the US welfare system spawned. We're making a big deal about the corruption found in the UN Oil for Food Program, but the billions skimmed from that program are a drop in the ocean. For decades, governments that received low-cost NGO loans for building projects routinely sent military operatives to steal the heavy equipment on the projects. Then the government would fence the stolen equipment in order to get hard currency to buy weapons.
That's just one scam out of countless for skimming hard currency off Western loans and aid. Then American taxpayers ask, "How do these dirt-poor governments find the money to buy so many weapons and support big armies?
So it's misleading to think of Bush's Proliferation Security Initiative as a purely military operation. The initiative is also a forceful way of telling all nations that the scams are being shut down.
If you're an Iranian despot spending $800 million to build a nuclear facility, which you swear to the international community is only for nuclear power--that's one issue. The other issue is that if you have that kind of money to spend on a 20th Century energy technology while the majority of your people still live in the 4th Century, America can no longer afford to participate in any way in the scam.
The 4th Century is generous. You saw pictures of what the city of Bam looked like before the earthquake. It was hard to tell the before-and-after pictures apart. What did those people need nuclear power for? An improved brand of candle wax and cow dung would have done it.
It's not necessarily talking trash, if a petroleum exporting government wants to install nuclear power plants. But one look at towns and most cities in Iran indicates what the Iranian government has done with their oil profits these past two decades. They plowed the greater portion into military spending. The distant second is Potemkin Village type projects, which look good on the glossy covers of reports the Iranian government shows to transnational banks they're wooing for loans. This is while the vast majority of Iranians live at borderline starvation. The Iran government had their excuse while Saddam was in power. Now we've removed the excuse.
So, Bush's PSI should not be conceived as interventionism--not given the amount of US tax dollars and investment funds that found their way into Western foreign aid and loans made by NGOs and international banks. And which propped up or created the despotic regimes we're dealing with today.
Of course the despots are huffy about Bush's tough love--as huffy as American welfare applicants when the Welfare-to-Work program was started and social workers began asking probing questions during the application interviews. Thus, the PSA campaign that put up posters all over America. The posters headlined, "Life is unfair. Get over it."
The PSI is a forceful way of saying the same to despots who spent decades whining to NGOs, "Oh we just poor developing country," every time they applied for a low-cost loan or defaulted on one.
Okay, if you're a poor developing country that depends on NGOs just to stay afloat, you don't need to be plowing your hard-earned hard currency into buying weapons material at gouge prices from black marketeers.
Granted, buying weapons is addictive because the Monkey See-Monkey Do aspect of human nature kicks in. If the government next door buys a fancy weapon system, your government wants the same system. So think of the PSI as helping depots break a habit they can't afford, and which Western taxes, defense industries and investment markets helped create.
The tough love extends to the contractors in EU nations who insist it's their right to sell weapons-related material and services to any country they want. This point also applies to Israel and FSU (former Soviet Union) contractors and African and Latin American governments that sell natural resources used in fancy weapons. Nobody is off the hook.
All such countries were on America's dole, in one form or another, for decades. If during the course they pulled themselves up enough to develop an export business from their national resources and defense industry, that's their right. It's also America's right to sit hard on allies and US foreign policy instruments (such as the World Bank) if firms in sponsoring countries insist on selling their wares and services to despots in developing countries.
Congress has not yet fully invoked the right, but Bush has made it clear that's where things are headed, if allies don't stop helping despots create regimes so well-armed and brutal they spawn insurgencies and terror groups, which falls back on America and every other democratic government.
Bush is leaving it to our Foreign Service to find reasonably polite ways to put the above points to allies and trading partners. But make no mistake; Bush wasn't kidding when he told the American people that our government would be fighting terrorism on many fronts, and in many ways that Americans would not hear announced on the nightly news.
The Nuclear Weapons Physicist as Nanny
"What do you think of Gordon Prather's claim that the Arab Bomb is a myth and that evidence against A. Q. Khan is overblown? I'm asking because it seems as if his views on how the US should deal with rouge/risky governments on the nuclear proliferation issue had considerable influence on earlier [US] administrations and that he still has a hearing among some factions in Washington.
[Signed] Chicago Dan"
Dear Chicago Dan:
Pundita dutifully read the article you forwarded and skimmed most of the articles penned by Dr. Prather that are listed on the Antiwar.com website.
Prather's view is spelled out his December 20, 2004 article for Antiwar.com. He states:
"The key to preventing nuke proliferation is the international control of the production, processing, transformation, and disposition of certain nuclear materials. In return for a promise to not acquire or seek to acquire nukes, the Treaty on Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons recognizes the "inalienable right" of all signatories to enjoy the peaceful benefits of nuclear energy. But all NPT-proscribed nuclear materials – as well as the facilities in which they are stored, processed, transformed, or consumed – have to be made subject to an International Atomic Energy Agency Safeguards Agreement."
This view puts Dr. Prather in line with what could be called the Chirac school of foreign policy. The school has ditched the view of the Kissinger school, which codified where US diplomacy had headed during the Cold War.
Kissinger's school made a pass at justifying the admission of thug governments into the Western community of democratic nations. The rationale was that if you treat despots as if they're democratically elected, some democratic impluses will eventually rub off on them. Chirac's post-Cold War school is more honest in that regard. If you're a despot and a trading partner, and if you at least muster an appearance of cooperating with the World Body at the UN, you do can do what you please within your own borders. Dr. Prather follows the same reasoning in his December 18, 2004, piece for Antiwar.com when he lectures Undersecretary of State John Bolton:
"Suddenly, the neo-crazies were alleging that the Iranian gas-centrifuge program – not the reactor at Bushehr – was the basis of the Iranian clandestine program to produce nukes. Well, first of all "clandestine" does not mean illicit or illegal[*] or prohibited. Under their old Safeguards agreement, if the Iranians wanted to spend a zillion dollars clandestinely producing thousands of gas centrifuges, that's none of Bolton's beeswax. Or if they clandestinely bought thousands of parts for gas centrifuges from Persian Gulf or Southeast Asian junk dealers, that's none of Bolton's beeswax, either."
* Prather observes in the article you sent me that, "...delivering a uranium-enrichment centrifuge to anyone is not illicit unless such delivery is a violation of the laws of the exporting country. And accepting delivery is not illicit unless the importing country (a) is a signatory to the NPT and (b) intends to enrich uranium for use in a nuclear weapon."
However, it's Prather's choice of words that caused Pundita to snap to attention. It's not every day that one comes across a nannyish tendency in a physicist specializing in nuclear weapons. I doubt that modern nannies (at least, the ones on this side of the Pond) scold children into minding their own business by invoking that old-fashioned figure of speech.
Pundita likes to envision a world in which nosy governments can be scolded into adopting a live-and-let live philosophy. The US military in Iraq should consider trying out that approach in lieu of all the unseemly wrangling with Syrian and Iranian troops slipping across Iraq's borders. Perhaps a good scolding would do the trick, replete with shaking an upraised forefinger.
Also, Allawi might try out that line on Tehran and Damascus. "None of your beeswax which political party gains the most votes in Iraq's election."
See whether that floats.
[Signed] Chicago Dan"
Dear Chicago Dan:
Pundita dutifully read the article you forwarded and skimmed most of the articles penned by Dr. Prather that are listed on the Antiwar.com website.
Prather's view is spelled out his December 20, 2004 article for Antiwar.com. He states:
"The key to preventing nuke proliferation is the international control of the production, processing, transformation, and disposition of certain nuclear materials. In return for a promise to not acquire or seek to acquire nukes, the Treaty on Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons recognizes the "inalienable right" of all signatories to enjoy the peaceful benefits of nuclear energy. But all NPT-proscribed nuclear materials – as well as the facilities in which they are stored, processed, transformed, or consumed – have to be made subject to an International Atomic Energy Agency Safeguards Agreement."
This view puts Dr. Prather in line with what could be called the Chirac school of foreign policy. The school has ditched the view of the Kissinger school, which codified where US diplomacy had headed during the Cold War.
Kissinger's school made a pass at justifying the admission of thug governments into the Western community of democratic nations. The rationale was that if you treat despots as if they're democratically elected, some democratic impluses will eventually rub off on them. Chirac's post-Cold War school is more honest in that regard. If you're a despot and a trading partner, and if you at least muster an appearance of cooperating with the World Body at the UN, you do can do what you please within your own borders. Dr. Prather follows the same reasoning in his December 18, 2004, piece for Antiwar.com when he lectures Undersecretary of State John Bolton:
"Suddenly, the neo-crazies were alleging that the Iranian gas-centrifuge program – not the reactor at Bushehr – was the basis of the Iranian clandestine program to produce nukes. Well, first of all "clandestine" does not mean illicit or illegal[*] or prohibited. Under their old Safeguards agreement, if the Iranians wanted to spend a zillion dollars clandestinely producing thousands of gas centrifuges, that's none of Bolton's beeswax. Or if they clandestinely bought thousands of parts for gas centrifuges from Persian Gulf or Southeast Asian junk dealers, that's none of Bolton's beeswax, either."
* Prather observes in the article you sent me that, "...delivering a uranium-enrichment centrifuge to anyone is not illicit unless such delivery is a violation of the laws of the exporting country. And accepting delivery is not illicit unless the importing country (a) is a signatory to the NPT and (b) intends to enrich uranium for use in a nuclear weapon."
However, it's Prather's choice of words that caused Pundita to snap to attention. It's not every day that one comes across a nannyish tendency in a physicist specializing in nuclear weapons. I doubt that modern nannies (at least, the ones on this side of the Pond) scold children into minding their own business by invoking that old-fashioned figure of speech.
Pundita likes to envision a world in which nosy governments can be scolded into adopting a live-and-let live philosophy. The US military in Iraq should consider trying out that approach in lieu of all the unseemly wrangling with Syrian and Iranian troops slipping across Iraq's borders. Perhaps a good scolding would do the trick, replete with shaking an upraised forefinger.
Also, Allawi might try out that line on Tehran and Damascus. "None of your beeswax which political party gains the most votes in Iraq's election."
See whether that floats.
Wednesday, January 5
Watch out for spattering plot goo
Dear Pundita, I stayed up all night reading every link you listed on Ukraine in all your posts, INCLUDING the ones on the World Socialist Web Site and about a million other articles on their site. You were right, if you look past the commie insults they have a lot of news about other parts of the world and US government activities that never make it into the US mainstream news reports. But I think you missed their Dec. 23 article. It gives a lot of history about the power struggle in the Ukraine. From everything else they said, which includes talking about what Stratfor says, I am pretty sure the people at the World Socialist website wouldn't agree with you that the State Dept. was a dupe of the European Union. The article puts the plan to isolate Russia on America. The article also tells a lot about why Kuchma got on the outs with Washington.
[Signed] Sleepless in St. Louis again"
Dear Sleepless Again:
Pundita is pleased to learn that her opinion doesn't march in lockstep with Stratfor and a bunch of Trotskyists. Well, nobody held a gun to State's head, that's for sure. However, Pundita sticks with her thesis that any plan to hem in Russia originated on the other side of the Pond.
However, this is a high stakes poker game. What would happen to the banking systems in West Europe, if the oligarchs pulled out their rainy day money and put it in local banks?
Of course not all the banks the oligarchs use are European owned; come to think of it, many of them are branches of American banks. Oh but that's right I forgot--the really big number crunching computers are owned by OPEC, BIS, and NASA. So maybe the State Department and their European counterparts overlooked a few details when they sat down to play poker with the Kremlin.
As to how long it would take for heads of state to speed-dial Putin after the first wave of electronic transfers got underway--about 12 mintues. 11-1/2 minutes to pray and the other half to lower their voices below the pitch of castrato.
Moscow holds so many high cards in this situation that this is why Pundita suspects our State Department didn't have a clear idea about what they were meddling with. The EU3 did know the score; they knew that any plan to isolate Russia was a bluff. The bluff was so dangerous that it would take the threat of force of arms to even come to the poker table. That's why the EU3 and their satellites needed the USA involved in the game.
Earth calling State Department: countries on the other side of the Atlantic have been machinating against each other for thousands of years. Their lack of perspective about each other is matched only by their knack for cooking up plots that explode or collapse from sheer complexity.
So, we here in 21st Century America need to wise up, if we don't want to be spattered by exploding plot goo. Doesn't mean we should shut ourselves off from Europe; we couldn't do that even with the will. But the State Department, White House and the Congress need to look first to history when Europeans bring them ideas. Just as there used to be a Taster, who tasted food before it was served to the king, so the US Secretary of State should consult a Historian. This should be done every time a European ally presents a winning idea for how to handle matters that got their start during the Roman Empire or earlier.
Thank you for sending the Dec. 23 WSWS article, which throws more light on why Kuchma fell from grace in Washington. What's interesting about Kuchma's fall is that he had put Ukraine on a fast track to joining NATO. He had adopted democratic liberalization reforms. He was doing just about everything the White House wanted.
Yushchenko and Yanukovich (and Kuchma) are connected with oligarch clans. That's not saying anything; virtually every FSU citizen connected with big business and involved with high-level politics is connected with an oligarch clan. But the more that comes out about State's involvement in Ukraine, the more I ask whether the controversies that suddenly arose around Kuchma had more to do with clan jostling than anything else. In that event State, White House, Congress, and the American taxpayer were swept up into Eurasian clan politics, which we know virtually nothing about.
Please get some sleep. Learn to take geopolitics in stride, for if it's not one mess it's another, and a solution always leads to another problem. Think of what's happening today as Scarlett O'Hara's Tomorrow. We're settling things the Roman Empire put off until tomorrow. To think in smaller bites of history, the post-Cold War generation will do the best they can to deal with the problems the Cold War left behind; that generation will in turn leave unfinished business for the next generation to deal with. Ever thus.
.
[Signed] Sleepless in St. Louis again"
Dear Sleepless Again:
Pundita is pleased to learn that her opinion doesn't march in lockstep with Stratfor and a bunch of Trotskyists. Well, nobody held a gun to State's head, that's for sure. However, Pundita sticks with her thesis that any plan to hem in Russia originated on the other side of the Pond.
However, this is a high stakes poker game. What would happen to the banking systems in West Europe, if the oligarchs pulled out their rainy day money and put it in local banks?
Of course not all the banks the oligarchs use are European owned; come to think of it, many of them are branches of American banks. Oh but that's right I forgot--the really big number crunching computers are owned by OPEC, BIS, and NASA. So maybe the State Department and their European counterparts overlooked a few details when they sat down to play poker with the Kremlin.
As to how long it would take for heads of state to speed-dial Putin after the first wave of electronic transfers got underway--about 12 mintues. 11-1/2 minutes to pray and the other half to lower their voices below the pitch of castrato.
Moscow holds so many high cards in this situation that this is why Pundita suspects our State Department didn't have a clear idea about what they were meddling with. The EU3 did know the score; they knew that any plan to isolate Russia was a bluff. The bluff was so dangerous that it would take the threat of force of arms to even come to the poker table. That's why the EU3 and their satellites needed the USA involved in the game.
Earth calling State Department: countries on the other side of the Atlantic have been machinating against each other for thousands of years. Their lack of perspective about each other is matched only by their knack for cooking up plots that explode or collapse from sheer complexity.
So, we here in 21st Century America need to wise up, if we don't want to be spattered by exploding plot goo. Doesn't mean we should shut ourselves off from Europe; we couldn't do that even with the will. But the State Department, White House and the Congress need to look first to history when Europeans bring them ideas. Just as there used to be a Taster, who tasted food before it was served to the king, so the US Secretary of State should consult a Historian. This should be done every time a European ally presents a winning idea for how to handle matters that got their start during the Roman Empire or earlier.
Thank you for sending the Dec. 23 WSWS article, which throws more light on why Kuchma fell from grace in Washington. What's interesting about Kuchma's fall is that he had put Ukraine on a fast track to joining NATO. He had adopted democratic liberalization reforms. He was doing just about everything the White House wanted.
Yushchenko and Yanukovich (and Kuchma) are connected with oligarch clans. That's not saying anything; virtually every FSU citizen connected with big business and involved with high-level politics is connected with an oligarch clan. But the more that comes out about State's involvement in Ukraine, the more I ask whether the controversies that suddenly arose around Kuchma had more to do with clan jostling than anything else. In that event State, White House, Congress, and the American taxpayer were swept up into Eurasian clan politics, which we know virtually nothing about.
Please get some sleep. Learn to take geopolitics in stride, for if it's not one mess it's another, and a solution always leads to another problem. Think of what's happening today as Scarlett O'Hara's Tomorrow. We're settling things the Roman Empire put off until tomorrow. To think in smaller bites of history, the post-Cold War generation will do the best they can to deal with the problems the Cold War left behind; that generation will in turn leave unfinished business for the next generation to deal with. Ever thus.
.
Monday, January 3
More on the America Desk (CBA) and waiting for the cows to come home
"Pundita, check out the link you provided [in a 12/30 post] to Justin Raimondo's The Yuschenko Mythos article. The link brings up a Nov. 2000 article by Raimondo on his impressions of Condi Rice. Also, you mentioned Raimondo doesn't make reference to the State Department in his piece about Yuschenko. True, but a link he provides to the Guardian's 11-26-04 article on the Ukraine election mentions "the US government" several times."
Thanks to the alert reader, Pundita has corrected the mistake and promises to try to remember to proofread the links she provides in her blogs before publishing them. However, the mistake led me to read Raimondo's piece on Dr. Rice, which leads me to ruminate momentarily on the role accident plays in recollection.
Raimondo writes in part, "Condie Rice is generally associated with the "realist" school of foreign policy . . . [the school] is potentially . . . a less expansive vision than the "humanitarian intervention" espoused by the Clinton administration or the notion of forward engagement with social or cultural problems like poverty and environmental degradation espoused by Al Gore in some interviews."
There's nothing original about Raimondo's comments; surely he'd made the same observations in earlier writings, indeed, the writing repeats the widely held belief that Clinton's interventionism was grounded in humanitarian concerns. However, Raimondo's comments bring the Clinton era of foreign policy into sharp relief, which points up the utter nonsense that the American public accepted as fact about Clinton's foreign policy aim.
Again I refer Pundita's readers to the 1995 mission statement that accompanied the formation of the America desk at State. (See also the 12/29 "America Desk" post). The desk is officially called the Office for Commercial and Business Affairs (CBA).
It doesn't get clearer than saying (in block letters, no less) that one aim of the America desk is "BRINGING BUSINESS CONCERNS TO THE FOREFRONT OF THE FOREIGN POLICY PROCESS."
The mission statement is very explicit in conveying that the installation of the America desk signaled a massive shift in US foreign policy. No longer would US foreign policy be led by US national security interests; it would be led by US business interests.
So what was the US news media waiting for during the Clinton years -- to be hit with a sledgehammer before they'd grasp the direction of Clinton's foreign policy?
Yes, Clinton promoted the idea that his foreign policy was grounded in humanitarianism. The US news media uncritically accepted the idea and passed it to the public. But it's a crock that Clinton's interventionism was grounded in humanitarian concerns, as even a cursory review of the Rwanda genocide brings home.
Yet no matter how much the US media groused about Clinton's decision to intervene in Kosovo and Somalia they swallowed the humanitarian line, hook and sinker. Even Raimondo, who strikes me as a born cynic, swallowed the line, if his observations in the Rice article are indication.
However, that Clinton foreign policy served US business interests would be one matter. Yet what's slowly emerging since 9/11 about State's activities during and since the Clinton administration calls into question whether the America Desk, as a foreign policy instrument, actually did serve US interests during the Clinton era. To be more precise, whether US interests ran a distant second to the interests of the European Union.
Surely the CBA helped oil the wheels of commerce for many US businesses seeking to open or deepen markets in foreign countries. But again, the mission statement is very clear in indicating that the America Desk was conceived not only to help American business abroad but also to serve as a foreign policy instrument. It's from the angle of foreign policy that one has to examine whether the America Desk served US interests.
The more information that comes out about State's intervention in former USSR countries during the Clinton era, the more it seems that the America Desk (in its role as a foreign policy instrument) had been serving the interests of NATO's European members. Specifically, the geopolitical interests of the EU's Big Three--Germany, France, and Great Britain.
On paper that doesn't sound such a bad idea, given the NATO alliance, until the defense interests of the Big Three clash with the defense interests of the USA. A clash is exactly what happened when Bush formulated the preemption doctrine, which everyone on earth knows by now is a call for unilateral action when America's security is threatened.
From that point onward, the British foreign office and the French and German governments turned with a vengeance on the Bush administration. The US Department of State sided with The Big Three against the Bush administration. Americans have a right to wonder how our own state department could turn against our own White House and even the will of our own Congress. The answer is "easily," if State managed during the Clinton era to accumulate the same power as their British counterpart. Not all the facts are in but at this juncture, that might have been what happened.
The British foreign office is virtually an autonomous branch of government. That is why there was (and remains) a sharp difference between Tony Blair and Jack Straw's view of the Bush's administration's approach to dealing with Saddam Hussein's government.
So Americans should take with a grain of salt the Guardian Unlimited article that the alert reader mentioned. Of course the State Department is part of "the US government," but that's not the same as saying that the Bush administration supported State's intervention in Ukraine or the way the intervention was carried out.
Indeed, Bush's reply to a reporter's question, after the Ukraine situation blew up, was very careful to distance himself from comments that Colin Powell, in his capacity as Secretary of State, made about the situation.
That doesn't necessarily mean the Bush White House didn't support State's intervention in Ukraine's political affairs. It means that even if the White House had not supported State's actions in Ukraine, there wasn't a whole lot Bush could do, beyond try for damage control with Putin.
Perhaps not since the Civil War has there has been so much disagreement between US government officials as between State and the post-9/11 Bush White House. Of course the author of the Guardian piece was aware of the disagreement; everyone who writes on foreign policy is aware--I think even the American public at large is by now aware. Yet the Guardian piece gives no hint of daylight between the White House and State.
I interject that the author of the Guardian piece is within his right to ignore the schism; that an administration doesn't have control of their foreign office still means that the buck stops at the desk of "the government."
Yet the slant of the Guardian piece underscores the view of the British foreign office, which strongly colors several of the major British news media coverage of Bush and the invasion of Iraq. Not to mention coloring the views of the army of British pundits who descended on the American airwaves and the Op-ed pages of major Americans newspapers after Bush announced the preemption doctrine.
(For more on this aspect of the US war on terror, see Pundita's 11/28/04 posting, "British pundits get the jump on America and why we should care.")
In any case, a thorough congressional inquiry into the activities of the America desk since its inception should throw light on the extent to which State has served the interests of our allies across the Pond. However, it's likely the cows will come home before such an inquiry is launched.
Thanks to the alert reader, Pundita has corrected the mistake and promises to try to remember to proofread the links she provides in her blogs before publishing them. However, the mistake led me to read Raimondo's piece on Dr. Rice, which leads me to ruminate momentarily on the role accident plays in recollection.
Raimondo writes in part, "Condie Rice is generally associated with the "realist" school of foreign policy . . . [the school] is potentially . . . a less expansive vision than the "humanitarian intervention" espoused by the Clinton administration or the notion of forward engagement with social or cultural problems like poverty and environmental degradation espoused by Al Gore in some interviews."
There's nothing original about Raimondo's comments; surely he'd made the same observations in earlier writings, indeed, the writing repeats the widely held belief that Clinton's interventionism was grounded in humanitarian concerns. However, Raimondo's comments bring the Clinton era of foreign policy into sharp relief, which points up the utter nonsense that the American public accepted as fact about Clinton's foreign policy aim.
Again I refer Pundita's readers to the 1995 mission statement that accompanied the formation of the America desk at State. (See also the 12/29 "America Desk" post). The desk is officially called the Office for Commercial and Business Affairs (CBA).
It doesn't get clearer than saying (in block letters, no less) that one aim of the America desk is "BRINGING BUSINESS CONCERNS TO THE FOREFRONT OF THE FOREIGN POLICY PROCESS."
The mission statement is very explicit in conveying that the installation of the America desk signaled a massive shift in US foreign policy. No longer would US foreign policy be led by US national security interests; it would be led by US business interests.
So what was the US news media waiting for during the Clinton years -- to be hit with a sledgehammer before they'd grasp the direction of Clinton's foreign policy?
Yes, Clinton promoted the idea that his foreign policy was grounded in humanitarianism. The US news media uncritically accepted the idea and passed it to the public. But it's a crock that Clinton's interventionism was grounded in humanitarian concerns, as even a cursory review of the Rwanda genocide brings home.
Yet no matter how much the US media groused about Clinton's decision to intervene in Kosovo and Somalia they swallowed the humanitarian line, hook and sinker. Even Raimondo, who strikes me as a born cynic, swallowed the line, if his observations in the Rice article are indication.
However, that Clinton foreign policy served US business interests would be one matter. Yet what's slowly emerging since 9/11 about State's activities during and since the Clinton administration calls into question whether the America Desk, as a foreign policy instrument, actually did serve US interests during the Clinton era. To be more precise, whether US interests ran a distant second to the interests of the European Union.
Surely the CBA helped oil the wheels of commerce for many US businesses seeking to open or deepen markets in foreign countries. But again, the mission statement is very clear in indicating that the America Desk was conceived not only to help American business abroad but also to serve as a foreign policy instrument. It's from the angle of foreign policy that one has to examine whether the America Desk served US interests.
The more information that comes out about State's intervention in former USSR countries during the Clinton era, the more it seems that the America Desk (in its role as a foreign policy instrument) had been serving the interests of NATO's European members. Specifically, the geopolitical interests of the EU's Big Three--Germany, France, and Great Britain.
On paper that doesn't sound such a bad idea, given the NATO alliance, until the defense interests of the Big Three clash with the defense interests of the USA. A clash is exactly what happened when Bush formulated the preemption doctrine, which everyone on earth knows by now is a call for unilateral action when America's security is threatened.
From that point onward, the British foreign office and the French and German governments turned with a vengeance on the Bush administration. The US Department of State sided with The Big Three against the Bush administration. Americans have a right to wonder how our own state department could turn against our own White House and even the will of our own Congress. The answer is "easily," if State managed during the Clinton era to accumulate the same power as their British counterpart. Not all the facts are in but at this juncture, that might have been what happened.
The British foreign office is virtually an autonomous branch of government. That is why there was (and remains) a sharp difference between Tony Blair and Jack Straw's view of the Bush's administration's approach to dealing with Saddam Hussein's government.
So Americans should take with a grain of salt the Guardian Unlimited article that the alert reader mentioned. Of course the State Department is part of "the US government," but that's not the same as saying that the Bush administration supported State's intervention in Ukraine or the way the intervention was carried out.
Indeed, Bush's reply to a reporter's question, after the Ukraine situation blew up, was very careful to distance himself from comments that Colin Powell, in his capacity as Secretary of State, made about the situation.
That doesn't necessarily mean the Bush White House didn't support State's intervention in Ukraine's political affairs. It means that even if the White House had not supported State's actions in Ukraine, there wasn't a whole lot Bush could do, beyond try for damage control with Putin.
Perhaps not since the Civil War has there has been so much disagreement between US government officials as between State and the post-9/11 Bush White House. Of course the author of the Guardian piece was aware of the disagreement; everyone who writes on foreign policy is aware--I think even the American public at large is by now aware. Yet the Guardian piece gives no hint of daylight between the White House and State.
I interject that the author of the Guardian piece is within his right to ignore the schism; that an administration doesn't have control of their foreign office still means that the buck stops at the desk of "the government."
Yet the slant of the Guardian piece underscores the view of the British foreign office, which strongly colors several of the major British news media coverage of Bush and the invasion of Iraq. Not to mention coloring the views of the army of British pundits who descended on the American airwaves and the Op-ed pages of major Americans newspapers after Bush announced the preemption doctrine.
(For more on this aspect of the US war on terror, see Pundita's 11/28/04 posting, "British pundits get the jump on America and why we should care.")
In any case, a thorough congressional inquiry into the activities of the America desk since its inception should throw light on the extent to which State has served the interests of our allies across the Pond. However, it's likely the cows will come home before such an inquiry is launched.
Saturday, January 1
America is not the maid
"Pundita, how can you say that the US didn't use military force during the Clinton era? However, I think America should adopt the West European model, which has moved beyond using military force to back up foreign policy aims."
[Signed] Not Born Yesterday"
Dear NBY:
Pundita never wrote that military force wasn't used during the Clinton era. If you seriously believe West Europe has moved beyond the use of military force as a foreign policy tool, please read the following:
"The leaders of France, Germany, Belgium and Luxembourg met in Brussels on April 29 [2003] for a mini-summit on European defense coordination. In a joint statement following the meeting, the leaders endorsed a list of proposals designed to enhance European defense coordination and capabilities, including the creation of a defense headquarters in Brussels and the establishment of a joint rapid reaction capability formed around a Franco-German core.
"Belgian Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt called the meeting in mid-March, purportedly to jump-start Europe's flagging hopes to create a common foreign policy. A day before the meeting, Verhofstadt said that without a viable European defense tool, "a European Union foreign policy is not credible."
That from a Stratfor report, quoted on April 30, 2003 by the
Belmont Club Blogger .
Not even the French are arrogant enough to believe that a workable foreign policy can be divorced from the threat of military force.
One of the biggest myths about Bush is that under his leadership America's posture toward the rest of the world is arrogant. What was arrogant was the Clinton policy of using American military force and NATO to leapfrog the foundation on which diplomacy rests, which is national security.
Under the Clinton White House, American military force was ostensibly used to right wrongs in the world. However, there was not an objective standard by which to measure what Clinton perceived to be wrongs; thus, atrocities in Yugoslavia raised Clinton's outrage but not genocide in Rwanda.
You just never knew what kind of situation would strike Clinton's advisors as needing US military application; it was a One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest defense policy. This said, it was possible to discern a method to the madness. This was provided you knew:
(a) During the Clinton era, the State Department ran US defense policy; and
(b) George Soros and the most influential EU leaders ran State.
To put this another way, the real European Union Eurozone army during Clinton's era was the US military.
To boil it down to the essence, during the Clinton era US defense policy was run from a post box in Brussels. This had a profound influence on what State considered to be a situation needing redress by the US military.
After 9/11 Bush put the threat of US military force back where it belongs--as a component of a foreign policy that is tightly moored to US defense concerns.
That's one reason why Germany, France, Belgium, and Luxembourg were bent out of shape by Bush's shift from Clinton policy; the shift meant that US foreign policy under Bush reads, "America is not the maid."
That meant the EU would need to do it themselves in future--at least as long as Bush remained in office. In turn that would mean the EU would need to spend serious money, if they wanted more than a toy army to enforce their foreign policy. That would be contingent on EU members agreeing on anything long enough to develop a common foreign policy.
__
[Signed] Not Born Yesterday"
Dear NBY:
Pundita never wrote that military force wasn't used during the Clinton era. If you seriously believe West Europe has moved beyond the use of military force as a foreign policy tool, please read the following:
"The leaders of France, Germany, Belgium and Luxembourg met in Brussels on April 29 [2003] for a mini-summit on European defense coordination. In a joint statement following the meeting, the leaders endorsed a list of proposals designed to enhance European defense coordination and capabilities, including the creation of a defense headquarters in Brussels and the establishment of a joint rapid reaction capability formed around a Franco-German core.
"Belgian Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt called the meeting in mid-March, purportedly to jump-start Europe's flagging hopes to create a common foreign policy. A day before the meeting, Verhofstadt said that without a viable European defense tool, "a European Union foreign policy is not credible."
That from a Stratfor report, quoted on April 30, 2003 by the
Belmont Club Blogger .
Not even the French are arrogant enough to believe that a workable foreign policy can be divorced from the threat of military force.
One of the biggest myths about Bush is that under his leadership America's posture toward the rest of the world is arrogant. What was arrogant was the Clinton policy of using American military force and NATO to leapfrog the foundation on which diplomacy rests, which is national security.
Under the Clinton White House, American military force was ostensibly used to right wrongs in the world. However, there was not an objective standard by which to measure what Clinton perceived to be wrongs; thus, atrocities in Yugoslavia raised Clinton's outrage but not genocide in Rwanda.
You just never knew what kind of situation would strike Clinton's advisors as needing US military application; it was a One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest defense policy. This said, it was possible to discern a method to the madness. This was provided you knew:
(a) During the Clinton era, the State Department ran US defense policy; and
(b) George Soros and the most influential EU leaders ran State.
To put this another way, the real European Union Eurozone army during Clinton's era was the US military.
To boil it down to the essence, during the Clinton era US defense policy was run from a post box in Brussels. This had a profound influence on what State considered to be a situation needing redress by the US military.
After 9/11 Bush put the threat of US military force back where it belongs--as a component of a foreign policy that is tightly moored to US defense concerns.
That's one reason why Germany, France, Belgium, and Luxembourg were bent out of shape by Bush's shift from Clinton policy; the shift meant that US foreign policy under Bush reads, "America is not the maid."
That meant the EU would need to do it themselves in future--at least as long as Bush remained in office. In turn that would mean the EU would need to spend serious money, if they wanted more than a toy army to enforce their foreign policy. That would be contingent on EU members agreeing on anything long enough to develop a common foreign policy.
__
US Department of Pack Rat
"Pundita, re your blog about the "American Desk" at the State Dept., have you read Joel Mowbray's book on the State Department? Mowbray is an investigative reporter with extensive contacts inside the State Department. Even with all his contacts and all his research of publicly available data, he admittedly only scratched the surface of the department's inner workings.
"Also, some powerful senators on both sides of the aisle have blocked attempts to investigate State's actions with regard to critically serious US defense-related problems."
"As for changing the culture inside the State Department, Rice will face the same problem that every other Secretary of State has faced. It's virtually impossible to fire any State employee who has tenure.
[Signed] Chicago Dan"
Dear Chicago Dan:
No, I've not read Mowbray's book, but he's a frequent visitor on John Batchelor's radio program. From John's interviews with the author I think there was a very specific focus to the research and interviews that went into Mowbray's 2003 book on State, Dangerous Diplomacy: How the State Department Threatens America's Security : Mowbray was particularly interested in whether State obstructed US security measures in the wake of 9/11, and whether State's influence on a range of US security-related policies helped leave America open to the kind of attack 9/11 represented. Thus, much still might be turned up by a researcher of Mowbray's caliber and contacts, if the focus switched to the "America Desk" -- the Office of Business and Commercial Affairs -- and its connection with the EU and Soros's activities during and since the Clinton administration.
This said, I'll grant that digging into State's affairs since the creation of the America Desk (in 1995) would be a Herculean task. However, I don't think it takes an army of investigators to get a handle on State's way of doing things, nor is sending in a team of Special Forces the only way to dislodge recalcitrant bureaucrats dug in at Foggy Bottom. We first need to understand State's central problem.
It's often observed that State has taken on too many functions but America is a superpower nation -- and for more than a decade, the lone superpower. So of course our foreign office necessarily has its hands in many pies.
I believe I stumbled across State's central problem while observing a particularly unpleasant squabble amongst my foreign policy advisors. I interject that forging diverse wildlife into a team was no easy task. But to stay with the thread there is a beaver, who has a fondness for the bamboo in Pundita's back yard, who occasionally sits in on the meetings. The beaver's first appearance at a policy meeting, or perhaps it was his attitude, touched off a barrage of insults between the hunting and foraging members of the team. These culminated in the hunters hurling at the other side what seems to be a supreme insult among wildlife: "Pack Rat!"
What I find most interesting about State's deep involvement in regime change in former Soviet countries is that this suggests State is still fighting the Cold War. However, the America Desk has obviously been very sensitive to the changes in Europe after the Soviet Union dissolved. And yet some of the horror stories about State that Mowbray recounted for Batchelor's audience suggest that State's Arab Desk is still functioning as it was in 1952.
That in turn suggests State doesn't so much evolve to keep up with changing times as pile desks on top of desks. There is probably a desk at State that is still doing all they can to help tear down the Berlin Wall. And another desk still working to smooth China's entry into the UN Security Council.
The situation represents the pack rat mentality: don't throw it away because you never know when you might need it. Of course many marriages have crashed because of a spouse's pack-rat tendencies. And (no surprise) psychiatry has deemed the worst cases to require medication. But maybe the profession has not gone overboard in this instance; if it comes to the point where your domicile is so stuffed with things that you're camping in the yard the medication option should be considered.
However, until we see State installing desks on the roof I don't think we need call in the psychiatrists. But it might be helpful, if Dr. Rice announces at the first staff meeting she chairs at State that this thing we call living includes letting go and moving on.
If that doesn't work, we might look to the World Bank for advice. If you can't fire employees, you can reorganize their desks out of existence. State is long overdue for an overhaul of its organization chart, of the kind the World Bank conducted a couple decades ago. It cost a fortune in golden parachutes but through the reorganization of divisions and departments, the Bank was able to cut out much deadwood.
The obstacle to a similar approach at State has been the Secretary of State; there has been no secretary in my memory who had the will, and the presidential backing, to conduct a reorganization at State. I think that will change with Dr. Rice. Yet the American adult public must not sit back and hope for Rice to make magic. We can do our part by getting informed as best we can, then flooding the White House, Secretary of State and Congress with letters that contain informed questions and complaints about State's doings.
Regarding the complaints, a caution. We should keep in mind that State headquarters are situated in Washington, DC, which is the #1 target on the terrorists' hit list. So, those who live in the Greater Washington, DC region (this includes Pundita) have a very special interest in seeing that nothing like 9/11 ever happens again. The interest is shared by employees who labor at Foggy Bottom.
Yet the policy views that undergird the horror stories in Joel Mowbray's book are clearly wrong -- wrong for this country in the present era. So now all the desks at State should be brought under a single guiding philosophy; one that's in the spirit of Donald Rumsfeld's comment about the need for an "American Desk" at State, and one that is more comprensive than supporting U.S. business expansion abroad.
"Also, some powerful senators on both sides of the aisle have blocked attempts to investigate State's actions with regard to critically serious US defense-related problems."
"As for changing the culture inside the State Department, Rice will face the same problem that every other Secretary of State has faced. It's virtually impossible to fire any State employee who has tenure.
[Signed] Chicago Dan"
Dear Chicago Dan:
No, I've not read Mowbray's book, but he's a frequent visitor on John Batchelor's radio program. From John's interviews with the author I think there was a very specific focus to the research and interviews that went into Mowbray's 2003 book on State, Dangerous Diplomacy: How the State Department Threatens America's Security : Mowbray was particularly interested in whether State obstructed US security measures in the wake of 9/11, and whether State's influence on a range of US security-related policies helped leave America open to the kind of attack 9/11 represented. Thus, much still might be turned up by a researcher of Mowbray's caliber and contacts, if the focus switched to the "America Desk" -- the Office of Business and Commercial Affairs -- and its connection with the EU and Soros's activities during and since the Clinton administration.
This said, I'll grant that digging into State's affairs since the creation of the America Desk (in 1995) would be a Herculean task. However, I don't think it takes an army of investigators to get a handle on State's way of doing things, nor is sending in a team of Special Forces the only way to dislodge recalcitrant bureaucrats dug in at Foggy Bottom. We first need to understand State's central problem.
It's often observed that State has taken on too many functions but America is a superpower nation -- and for more than a decade, the lone superpower. So of course our foreign office necessarily has its hands in many pies.
I believe I stumbled across State's central problem while observing a particularly unpleasant squabble amongst my foreign policy advisors. I interject that forging diverse wildlife into a team was no easy task. But to stay with the thread there is a beaver, who has a fondness for the bamboo in Pundita's back yard, who occasionally sits in on the meetings. The beaver's first appearance at a policy meeting, or perhaps it was his attitude, touched off a barrage of insults between the hunting and foraging members of the team. These culminated in the hunters hurling at the other side what seems to be a supreme insult among wildlife: "Pack Rat!"
What I find most interesting about State's deep involvement in regime change in former Soviet countries is that this suggests State is still fighting the Cold War. However, the America Desk has obviously been very sensitive to the changes in Europe after the Soviet Union dissolved. And yet some of the horror stories about State that Mowbray recounted for Batchelor's audience suggest that State's Arab Desk is still functioning as it was in 1952.
That in turn suggests State doesn't so much evolve to keep up with changing times as pile desks on top of desks. There is probably a desk at State that is still doing all they can to help tear down the Berlin Wall. And another desk still working to smooth China's entry into the UN Security Council.
The situation represents the pack rat mentality: don't throw it away because you never know when you might need it. Of course many marriages have crashed because of a spouse's pack-rat tendencies. And (no surprise) psychiatry has deemed the worst cases to require medication. But maybe the profession has not gone overboard in this instance; if it comes to the point where your domicile is so stuffed with things that you're camping in the yard the medication option should be considered.
However, until we see State installing desks on the roof I don't think we need call in the psychiatrists. But it might be helpful, if Dr. Rice announces at the first staff meeting she chairs at State that this thing we call living includes letting go and moving on.
If that doesn't work, we might look to the World Bank for advice. If you can't fire employees, you can reorganize their desks out of existence. State is long overdue for an overhaul of its organization chart, of the kind the World Bank conducted a couple decades ago. It cost a fortune in golden parachutes but through the reorganization of divisions and departments, the Bank was able to cut out much deadwood.
The obstacle to a similar approach at State has been the Secretary of State; there has been no secretary in my memory who had the will, and the presidential backing, to conduct a reorganization at State. I think that will change with Dr. Rice. Yet the American adult public must not sit back and hope for Rice to make magic. We can do our part by getting informed as best we can, then flooding the White House, Secretary of State and Congress with letters that contain informed questions and complaints about State's doings.
Regarding the complaints, a caution. We should keep in mind that State headquarters are situated in Washington, DC, which is the #1 target on the terrorists' hit list. So, those who live in the Greater Washington, DC region (this includes Pundita) have a very special interest in seeing that nothing like 9/11 ever happens again. The interest is shared by employees who labor at Foggy Bottom.
Yet the policy views that undergird the horror stories in Joel Mowbray's book are clearly wrong -- wrong for this country in the present era. So now all the desks at State should be brought under a single guiding philosophy; one that's in the spirit of Donald Rumsfeld's comment about the need for an "American Desk" at State, and one that is more comprensive than supporting U.S. business expansion abroad.
Thursday, December 30
A timely reminder about the IMF-Ukraine Central Bank scandal
An alert reader sent Pundita a 11/29 report, The Yuschenko Mythos , written by Justin Raimondo of Antiwar.com. The reader believes the report supports the thesis presented in Pundita's 12/28 post .
I think the passage that caught the reader's eye is, "The Yushchenko-Timoshenko forces want to align with Georgia, Uzbekistan, Azerbaijan, and Moldova (the other nations in the GUUAM configuration of junior league NATO aspirants) in erecting a ring of iron around Putin and the former Soviet Union."
(Ms. Timoshenko, or The Robber Baroness, as she is fondly dubbed by her critics, is one of the more colorful oligarchs to be involved in the Ukraine election.)
I don't dispute Raimondo's observation as far as it goes. Yet my thesis is broader in the sense that I see the oligarch clans represented by Yuschenko, et al. as pawns of a west European plan to hem in Russia--a plan the US Department of State (and seemingly the Clinton administration) supported.
However, I was interested in one of the links provided in Raimondo's report, which is a September 2003 article by the Canadian newspaper, The Globe and Mail. The article is titled "Former Soviet republics poised to sign trade deal. Critics fear economic pact signals attempt to consolidate power in hands of Kremlin."
The countries involved in the discussion, which included Russia and Ukraine, were essentially proposing their own version of the European Union. The deal was abandoned, or at least suspended, according to the report. But the fears of EU leaders about such discussion help explain the knockdown battle that emerged in Ukraine between Yushchenko's State Department/European supporters and Yanukovich's Russian supporters.
And if you're looking for dirt on Yuschenko beyond the link that Pundita's 12/28 post provides, Raimondo's report is a great place to start. The caveat is that Raimondo's report takes aim at so many corrupt situations involving Ukraine and the oligarchs and takes so many pot shots at the Bush administration and American oil companies that the total effect is dizzying.
Yet we can't assume that even a remnant of the Bush administration will be in Washington after the next presidential election. However, the US Department of State will still be there. For all the wealth of information in Raimondo's report there is no mention of State's role in the Ukraine election campaigns and the aftermath. He does mention the words "US Treasury" and "George Soros" in passing, and it's possible that one of the many links he provides mentions State. But in the actual report, not a mention. Yet discussing the situation in Ukraine without mentioning State is akin to discussing Saddam's rise to power without mentioning the CIA.
This is not to discourage Pundita's readers from reading the report, which touches on the larceny of Ukraine's central bank under Yushchenko's leadership. Pundita confesses that the UN Oil for Food Program scandal had shoved the IMF-Ukraine scandal to the back of her mind. Raimondo's report is a timely reminder. The Ukraine central bank under Yushchenko's leadership embezzled $613 million or $200 million, depending on which source you favor, from the International Monetary Fund.
The IMF-Ukraine affair is a sobering reminder of the connection between the FSU oligarchs and the West European banks. The Ukraine Central Bank's scheme to embezzle the IMF depended on laundering funds through European banks. That's a tactic the oligarchs perfected while carving up the Soviet Union's government-controlled industries. The tactic underscores that the oligarchs' mind-boggling wealth can't be separated from banks outside the USSR regions.
When the electronic transfers get into the billions, the deposits the banks hold onto, if even only for a few hours or days, help them underwrite lots of business loans and make big investments in the financial markets, which oils the wheels of commerce.
So there is a house-of-cards situation looming for West Europe, if the Russian government continues to wrest back control of the major industries that the oligarchs took off the Soviet government's hands. This would be provided Moscow uses control of the profits to build up Russia's bank reserves.
The dollar figures involved in the Ukraine-IMF Affair are chump change when measured against the billions that were bilked by Saddam Hussein and many UN Oil for Food Program participants.
I interject that with hindsight, Bush should have just told other members of the UN Security Council, "We're going to invade Iraq because it's the only way to shut down the UN Oil for Food Program, you crooks."
Of course some American companies were involved in the faud but those companies are a drop in the bucket; probably companies from every nation were involved. But since recalling the Ukraine-IMF Affair, Pundita is beginning to worry. If the FSU oligarchs ever stop doing much of their banking in West Europe, and with the skimmed profits from the UN Oil for Food Program cut off, what's left to support the western part of the Eurozone economy?
I think the passage that caught the reader's eye is, "The Yushchenko-Timoshenko forces want to align with Georgia, Uzbekistan, Azerbaijan, and Moldova (the other nations in the GUUAM configuration of junior league NATO aspirants) in erecting a ring of iron around Putin and the former Soviet Union."
(Ms. Timoshenko, or The Robber Baroness, as she is fondly dubbed by her critics, is one of the more colorful oligarchs to be involved in the Ukraine election.)
I don't dispute Raimondo's observation as far as it goes. Yet my thesis is broader in the sense that I see the oligarch clans represented by Yuschenko, et al. as pawns of a west European plan to hem in Russia--a plan the US Department of State (and seemingly the Clinton administration) supported.
However, I was interested in one of the links provided in Raimondo's report, which is a September 2003 article by the Canadian newspaper, The Globe and Mail. The article is titled "Former Soviet republics poised to sign trade deal. Critics fear economic pact signals attempt to consolidate power in hands of Kremlin."
The countries involved in the discussion, which included Russia and Ukraine, were essentially proposing their own version of the European Union. The deal was abandoned, or at least suspended, according to the report. But the fears of EU leaders about such discussion help explain the knockdown battle that emerged in Ukraine between Yushchenko's State Department/European supporters and Yanukovich's Russian supporters.
And if you're looking for dirt on Yuschenko beyond the link that Pundita's 12/28 post provides, Raimondo's report is a great place to start. The caveat is that Raimondo's report takes aim at so many corrupt situations involving Ukraine and the oligarchs and takes so many pot shots at the Bush administration and American oil companies that the total effect is dizzying.
Yet we can't assume that even a remnant of the Bush administration will be in Washington after the next presidential election. However, the US Department of State will still be there. For all the wealth of information in Raimondo's report there is no mention of State's role in the Ukraine election campaigns and the aftermath. He does mention the words "US Treasury" and "George Soros" in passing, and it's possible that one of the many links he provides mentions State. But in the actual report, not a mention. Yet discussing the situation in Ukraine without mentioning State is akin to discussing Saddam's rise to power without mentioning the CIA.
This is not to discourage Pundita's readers from reading the report, which touches on the larceny of Ukraine's central bank under Yushchenko's leadership. Pundita confesses that the UN Oil for Food Program scandal had shoved the IMF-Ukraine scandal to the back of her mind. Raimondo's report is a timely reminder. The Ukraine central bank under Yushchenko's leadership embezzled $613 million or $200 million, depending on which source you favor, from the International Monetary Fund.
The IMF-Ukraine affair is a sobering reminder of the connection between the FSU oligarchs and the West European banks. The Ukraine Central Bank's scheme to embezzle the IMF depended on laundering funds through European banks. That's a tactic the oligarchs perfected while carving up the Soviet Union's government-controlled industries. The tactic underscores that the oligarchs' mind-boggling wealth can't be separated from banks outside the USSR regions.
When the electronic transfers get into the billions, the deposits the banks hold onto, if even only for a few hours or days, help them underwrite lots of business loans and make big investments in the financial markets, which oils the wheels of commerce.
So there is a house-of-cards situation looming for West Europe, if the Russian government continues to wrest back control of the major industries that the oligarchs took off the Soviet government's hands. This would be provided Moscow uses control of the profits to build up Russia's bank reserves.
The dollar figures involved in the Ukraine-IMF Affair are chump change when measured against the billions that were bilked by Saddam Hussein and many UN Oil for Food Program participants.
I interject that with hindsight, Bush should have just told other members of the UN Security Council, "We're going to invade Iraq because it's the only way to shut down the UN Oil for Food Program, you crooks."
Of course some American companies were involved in the faud but those companies are a drop in the bucket; probably companies from every nation were involved. But since recalling the Ukraine-IMF Affair, Pundita is beginning to worry. If the FSU oligarchs ever stop doing much of their banking in West Europe, and with the skimmed profits from the UN Oil for Food Program cut off, what's left to support the western part of the Eurozone economy?
Wednesday, December 29
The America Desk at State: The Office for Commercial and Business Affairs
"Looks like Rumsfeld was right when he said maybe it was time to install [an] American desk at the State Dept." --a reader's comment on Pundita's 12/28 post.
Ah, but there is an American desk at State; it was established in 1995. The desk is officially called the Office for Commercial and Business Affairs (CBA). The CBA falls under the massive Bureau for Commercial and Business Affairs at State.
The catch is that the America Desk is a business desk: ". . .committed to promoting U.S. economic and commercial interests overseas." Here is an excerpt from the 1995 mission statement:
"The America Desk
"The State Department has a China Desk, a Haiti Desk and a Poland Desk. Secretary Christopher has established an "America Desk." The Secretary and all State Department officers serve on the "America Desk" to ensure that the vital concerns of the American people and the American business community are represented in the State Department and in our foreign policy. Coordinator for Business Affairs.
"As part of the "America Desk" commitment, the Secretary has designated a Coordinator for Business Affairs to act as an ombudsman for business within the State Department. The Coordinator reports to the Under Secretary for Economic, Business and Agricultural Affairs, and works closely with our Embassies abroad and the State Department regional and functional bureau coordinators in Washington to promote U.S. economic and commercial interests through:
-- ADVOCACY ON BEHALF OF U.S. FIRMS COMPETING OVERSEAS.
-- LEVELING THE PLAYING FIELD AND PROBLEM SOLVING FOR U.S. BUSINESS OVERSEAS.
-- BRINGING BUSINESS CONCERNS TO THE FOREFRONT OF THE FOREIGN POLICY PROCESS. "
The last sentence above speaks volumes about the State Department's direction during and since the Clinton presidency. If we dig into the activities of the CBA during the past decade I feel sure we'll find many pieces to the puzzle of how Foggy Bottom managed to eclipse the Pentagon's power.
Also, in light of the election situation in Ukraine, it would be helpful to learn whether the CBA helped smooth business deals launched by [ex-USSR] oligarchs who found favor during Clinton's administration and at the pre-9/11 Bush White House. I am thinking in particular of Khodorkovsky, who has been cooling his heels in Russian jail for several months.
Ah, but there is an American desk at State; it was established in 1995. The desk is officially called the Office for Commercial and Business Affairs (CBA). The CBA falls under the massive Bureau for Commercial and Business Affairs at State.
The catch is that the America Desk is a business desk: ". . .committed to promoting U.S. economic and commercial interests overseas." Here is an excerpt from the 1995 mission statement:
"The America Desk
"The State Department has a China Desk, a Haiti Desk and a Poland Desk. Secretary Christopher has established an "America Desk." The Secretary and all State Department officers serve on the "America Desk" to ensure that the vital concerns of the American people and the American business community are represented in the State Department and in our foreign policy. Coordinator for Business Affairs.
"As part of the "America Desk" commitment, the Secretary has designated a Coordinator for Business Affairs to act as an ombudsman for business within the State Department. The Coordinator reports to the Under Secretary for Economic, Business and Agricultural Affairs, and works closely with our Embassies abroad and the State Department regional and functional bureau coordinators in Washington to promote U.S. economic and commercial interests through:
-- ADVOCACY ON BEHALF OF U.S. FIRMS COMPETING OVERSEAS.
-- LEVELING THE PLAYING FIELD AND PROBLEM SOLVING FOR U.S. BUSINESS OVERSEAS.
-- BRINGING BUSINESS CONCERNS TO THE FOREFRONT OF THE FOREIGN POLICY PROCESS. "
The last sentence above speaks volumes about the State Department's direction during and since the Clinton presidency. If we dig into the activities of the CBA during the past decade I feel sure we'll find many pieces to the puzzle of how Foggy Bottom managed to eclipse the Pentagon's power.
Also, in light of the election situation in Ukraine, it would be helpful to learn whether the CBA helped smooth business deals launched by [ex-USSR] oligarchs who found favor during Clinton's administration and at the pre-9/11 Bush White House. I am thinking in particular of Khodorkovsky, who has been cooling his heels in Russian jail for several months.
With Apologies to Ayn Rand: Whereupon Pundita discovers the World Socialist Website is a good source for news on State's doings in former USSR
Capitalist readers of Pundita's blog mustn't worry for our safety; Pundita always takes the precaution of squirting demon repellent along the floor moldings and door jambs before visiting a socialist website.
But stop and think: who better than the socialists to keep close tabs on the doings in Russia and USSR regions? The World Socialist Web Site writers dislike Putin as much as they dislike the European and American Imperialists. That gives them, if not exactly an unbiased opinion, at least an attention to news stories that American news media have studiously ignored since the Soviet Union dissolved.
After reading through 10 reports on the WSWS page , which posts news from Russia and the former USSR, the light dawned. Pundita now glimpses the reason for the state department's mysterious belligerence toward Russia and why the state department and George Soros were so anxious to be rid of Bush. I hasten to add that Pundita's observations are not explicitly stated in the reports on the WSWS; they are the result of rumination and discussion with our foreign policy team. Without further introduction:
During the Clinton era, State's idea was to isolate Russia militarily by bringing as many former Soviet republics into NATO as they could manage. It's doubtful State came up with the idea on their own; the EU Big Three (Germany, France, Britain) saw the writing on the wall surely even before Gorbachev dissolved the Soviet Union.
After the Warsaw Pact collapsed, the US would eventually make deep cuts in troops stationed in Europe. That would leave Europe, with no military to speak of and with no nukes, to face the prospect of a nuclear-armed ultra-nationalist Russia. And a Russia with a crumbled infrastructure and a military in disarray, and yet still wielding great influence on former vassal states.
But how could West Europe bring the former vassals into the NATO sphere without risking the wrath of Russian generals? Here I recall one of Dr. Stephen Cohen's crash courses last year on recent Russian history for John Batchelor's audience. Vladimir Putin was set in power by the very oligarchs he's now battling. One of the WSWS reports supports Cohen's observation. I think the general idea was to first weaken the Russian military's influence in Russia. This was done by offering the oligarchs very lucrative Euro Big Three/US trade and banking-loan deals. Once the oligarchs' hold on power in Russia was strengthened, a pliant national leader would be set in place in Russia.
At the same time, the Big Three and the US would pour aid money and low-cost development loans into former Soviet republics that were closest to Europe.
The next step was to engineer the rise of politicians in the former Soviet republics who would lean toward joining NATO.
Surprisingly (given the Western media's demonizing of him since the Ukraine election), Kuchma was our Man in Ukraine for years. It was Kuchma, with US and EU backing, who initiated a drive to lead Ukraine into the European Union and NATO. And he welcomed US aid for democracy programs in Ukraine.
But then Kuchma crossed an oligarch and by doing so got on the wrong side of the state department. Thus, State began to groom Yushchenko (the Orange candidate) for the leadership post in Ukraine.
But Kuchma dug in. After he scurried to the Kremlin for help, he held onto the support of Ukrainians who leaned toward Russia and away from joining NATO. Kuchma backed Yanukovich (the Blue Candidate) when he saw he could no longer maintain hold on power. (See the above link to Yushchenko for the skinny on Yanukovich.)
How, then, could State and the Big Three deal with that pesky obstructionist Kuchma and his toady? In the same way Georgia's Schevardnadze was dealt with: through a "peaceful" putsch designed by George Soros and backed by US and EU money, and which was crafted to seem a spontaneous uprising of the people. Ukraine's Orange Revolution is a knockoff of Georgia's Rose Revolution.
Now here is where it gets interesting. Schevardnadze was our Man in Georgia. He was pro-American. So why did the state department drop him like a hot potato and fall all over themselves to hail his EU-backed successor?
The answer is not entirely clear from the WSWS reports I read (there are scores of reports I left unread). I do know that Schevardnadze had worn out his welcome with the Georgians. Yet since when has that drawback prevented a US backed leader from remaining in power? Thus, a more likely reason for his fall from grace is that Schevardnadze didn't think the best course for Georgia was to join NATO.
With the above ruminations finished, it's plain as day why Soros and State moved heaven and earth in the effort to prevent Bush's reelection. After all those years of Soros and State slaving away to help the EU isolate Russia, the president of the world's lone superpower gave Putin a ride in his pickup and to seal the friendship, bestowed the nickname "Pooty-poo" on him. To grasp the full foreign-policy import, Bush nicknamed Jacques Chirac "Jackass Chirac."
We must also look at things from the viewpoint of the Russian oligarchs and the leaders of Germany and France to grasp their irritation with Bush. Yes, 9/11 was an unfortunate event. But in the grand scheme, the deaths of a few thousand Americans were not enough to justify an American president wheeling US foreign policy on it's heel and romancing the anti-NATO Vladimir Putin. (As for Blair, his position was very complex; we'll discuss that someday.)
To top it off, Bush's war on terror allowed Rumsfeld to order that US military bases be thrown up in some former Soviet vassal countries. This is just what Europe didn't want. They were trying to encircle Russia softly, softly. Not with anything so alarming as missiles and fighter jets perched on Russia's doorstep.
Here, the reader might ask whether Soros and the State faction aren't in the right -- at least, in their view if not their tactics. After all, we must be loyal to the NATO alliance for as long as the alliance stands. And by all accounts in the Western mainstream media, the Rose and Orange Revolutions -- even if they weren't really revolutions -- and getting rid of Milosevic are big gains for democracy.
I think the best answer is that one must be suspicious of the idea that democracy is served by a putsch masquerading as the Will of the People -- particularly if the putsch is engineered by governments and business interests from outside the country. The suspicion gathers force from the WSWS report on what has happened to democracy in Serbia and Georgia since the "People's Will" triumphed. Even though the report is biased against Running Dogs of Capitalism, it raises enough troubling points to sound a warning. Orchestrating the rise of governments that will march in lockstep with EU geopolitical designs is not necessarily the same as scoring a win on behalf of democracy.
All the above supports Stephen Cohen's observations, after Batchelor mentioned the impending announcement of joint China-Russia military exercises. Cohen enumerated reasons why Russia has come to feel encircled by the US. He finished by saying that the heavy-handed US involvement in the Ukraine election was the final straw. As Dr. Cohen put it, "It was too much."
I think Russia would have agreed to join the maneuvers in any case (reference the Shanghai Cooperative -- China's answer to Bush's Coalition of the Willing for fighting terrorism). Yet Russia's anger at the US about the Ukraine Affair probably caused Moscow to plan for much greater involvement with the maneuvers than originally planned.
And Cohen's stark summary of how Moscow would react to US involvement in Ukraine has been amply supported by recent pronouncements from Putin, which lambaste the USA. Alert readers might ask how it came to be that America was left holding the bag. That is the question, isn't it? It's well-documented that the Big Three and their go-fer countries in the EU did just as much meddling in Ukraine and other former Soviet republics as the USA and Russia. But to hear Putin tell it, it's all our fault. How did we end up in that position?
The best Pundita could do toward getting a handle on the answer was ask the crows for their opinion and brace herself for the inevitable disagreements between them, which usually only end when Pundita blows up a paper bag and pops it. However, those two members of the foreign policy team are Pundita's best source on Russian matters. They spend so much time flitting about the Russian embassy grounds in Washington that my nickname for them is Da and Nyet.
To my surprise, the crows were in perfect agreement in their reply. They strongly support the Russian embassy's policy toward free-ranging cats and evidentially anything that creeps and which could possibly be wired with a microphone.
From this, I'd surmise that we're getting the blame because Russia has an ocean between America, whereas Russia can't avoid attending EU barbecues and backyard sales. And perhaps Putin knows he can't afford to alienate all the oligarchs, particularly those who want to do big business with Europe. Another point is that Western Europe is a big buyer of Russian natural gas.
Having escaped the fate that Soros planned for him, how is our president elect dealing with the Russian frost? From his soft-pedal comments about the Ukraine election controversy, which were in sharp contrast to Powell's blunt and even rude language to Moscow, it seems he's trying to thread the camel.
One can appreciate the dilemma. Bush shouldn't alienate France, Germany and Jack Straw any more than he's already done. At the same time, he needs to find a way to reassure Putin and the Russian generals that the US doesn't want to restart the Cold War, any more than State has already helped to restart it.
I sense that Bush will delegate the problem to Condi; if so, we'll have to wait until Dr. Rice has settled into her duties at State before we can gauge whether the frost can be melted. Thank goodness she's fluent in Russian and knows more Russian history than most Russians. Also, she speaks fluent Petroleum. She probably has the planned location of every pipeline on the planet punched into her PDA. So it may be that another large check handed to Putin's government to help with oil exploration and/or pipeline building will figure somehow into smoothing ruffled feathers.
But here I recall another warning from Dr. Cohen, given many months ago. He told Batchelor's audience that throwing money at the situation won't cut it, if the Russians become truly angered at America's designs on their country. The warning makes sense. Just as we couldn't be placated with a large Saudi check after 9/11, one can presume the Russian generals -- and the Russian populace at large -- would spit on our money if it's not accompanied by a halt in what they now fear is a US attempt to bring Russia to her knees.
However, there's much more at stake for the US than cooled relations with Moscow. The US should encourage democracy movements around the globe and use our power to support and yes, even pressure nervous governments to stick with democratic reforms. But the story of State's actions in former USSR that emerges from reports posted on WSWS suggest that's not exactly what we've been doing.
To whatever extent our democracy programs have had good results in former Soviet regions, this seems to have come as a byproduct of supporting European Union geopolitics. That's putting the cart before the horse. It's also a threat to US national security interests because US support for EU strategies has been uncritical, if not blind.
From all the above, it should be clear that Americans got it somewhat backward, when we asked why France and Germany betrayed America on Iraq. They didn't betray us, from their point of view; it's just that we stopped going along with their program. That this program included selling weapons to Saddam on the eve of the US invasion -- well, such sales were not a new wrinkle.
Granted, the extent to which we'd been going along with the EU program, and exactly what we'd been doing in the process, was known only to a virtual handful of Americans inside the Beltway during the Clinton era. And because this is a representative democracy we elect people to do oversight of US government agencies for us. Yet clearly the oversight process broke down with regard to State -- and to such an extent that US defense policy took a back seat to serving Europe's geopolitical aims.
The good news is that we no longer need wonder why the Euro Three (actually, now the Euro Six) broke rank with the United States on how to deal with Tehran's nuclear weapon program. The answer is that they didn't break rank with us, we broke rank with them.
Perhaps all the above is another way of saying that we didn't have a good plan for how to proceed in relation to Russia after the Soviet Union collapsed. So we went with the European plan. Which brought us to today.
If you groan at the thought of spending hours on the World Socialist Web Site, I would urge you to at least skim the reports I hyperlinked above, and look through the two reports linked at the end of this post. One can't read back through the years of news stories on the WSWS without sensing that a huge mess is threatening to build in Eurasia. It shouldn't turn out that way -- not after all the American blood, sweat, tears, and tax dollars that went into winning the Cold War.
For those readers who would like to find a more objective assessment than the WSWS offers about US relations with Russia since the end of the Cold War, a good place to start is Stephen Cohen's cheerily titled Failed Crusade: America and the Tragedy of Post-Communist Russia."
"Great power rivalries erupt over disputed election in Ukraine"
"US intervenes in disputed Ukraine election: Who the hell asked you, Mr. Powell?"
But stop and think: who better than the socialists to keep close tabs on the doings in Russia and USSR regions? The World Socialist Web Site writers dislike Putin as much as they dislike the European and American Imperialists. That gives them, if not exactly an unbiased opinion, at least an attention to news stories that American news media have studiously ignored since the Soviet Union dissolved.
After reading through 10 reports on the WSWS page , which posts news from Russia and the former USSR, the light dawned. Pundita now glimpses the reason for the state department's mysterious belligerence toward Russia and why the state department and George Soros were so anxious to be rid of Bush. I hasten to add that Pundita's observations are not explicitly stated in the reports on the WSWS; they are the result of rumination and discussion with our foreign policy team. Without further introduction:
During the Clinton era, State's idea was to isolate Russia militarily by bringing as many former Soviet republics into NATO as they could manage. It's doubtful State came up with the idea on their own; the EU Big Three (Germany, France, Britain) saw the writing on the wall surely even before Gorbachev dissolved the Soviet Union.
After the Warsaw Pact collapsed, the US would eventually make deep cuts in troops stationed in Europe. That would leave Europe, with no military to speak of and with no nukes, to face the prospect of a nuclear-armed ultra-nationalist Russia. And a Russia with a crumbled infrastructure and a military in disarray, and yet still wielding great influence on former vassal states.
But how could West Europe bring the former vassals into the NATO sphere without risking the wrath of Russian generals? Here I recall one of Dr. Stephen Cohen's crash courses last year on recent Russian history for John Batchelor's audience. Vladimir Putin was set in power by the very oligarchs he's now battling. One of the WSWS reports supports Cohen's observation. I think the general idea was to first weaken the Russian military's influence in Russia. This was done by offering the oligarchs very lucrative Euro Big Three/US trade and banking-loan deals. Once the oligarchs' hold on power in Russia was strengthened, a pliant national leader would be set in place in Russia.
At the same time, the Big Three and the US would pour aid money and low-cost development loans into former Soviet republics that were closest to Europe.
The next step was to engineer the rise of politicians in the former Soviet republics who would lean toward joining NATO.
Surprisingly (given the Western media's demonizing of him since the Ukraine election), Kuchma was our Man in Ukraine for years. It was Kuchma, with US and EU backing, who initiated a drive to lead Ukraine into the European Union and NATO. And he welcomed US aid for democracy programs in Ukraine.
But then Kuchma crossed an oligarch and by doing so got on the wrong side of the state department. Thus, State began to groom Yushchenko (the Orange candidate) for the leadership post in Ukraine.
But Kuchma dug in. After he scurried to the Kremlin for help, he held onto the support of Ukrainians who leaned toward Russia and away from joining NATO. Kuchma backed Yanukovich (the Blue Candidate) when he saw he could no longer maintain hold on power. (See the above link to Yushchenko for the skinny on Yanukovich.)
How, then, could State and the Big Three deal with that pesky obstructionist Kuchma and his toady? In the same way Georgia's Schevardnadze was dealt with: through a "peaceful" putsch designed by George Soros and backed by US and EU money, and which was crafted to seem a spontaneous uprising of the people. Ukraine's Orange Revolution is a knockoff of Georgia's Rose Revolution.
Now here is where it gets interesting. Schevardnadze was our Man in Georgia. He was pro-American. So why did the state department drop him like a hot potato and fall all over themselves to hail his EU-backed successor?
The answer is not entirely clear from the WSWS reports I read (there are scores of reports I left unread). I do know that Schevardnadze had worn out his welcome with the Georgians. Yet since when has that drawback prevented a US backed leader from remaining in power? Thus, a more likely reason for his fall from grace is that Schevardnadze didn't think the best course for Georgia was to join NATO.
With the above ruminations finished, it's plain as day why Soros and State moved heaven and earth in the effort to prevent Bush's reelection. After all those years of Soros and State slaving away to help the EU isolate Russia, the president of the world's lone superpower gave Putin a ride in his pickup and to seal the friendship, bestowed the nickname "Pooty-poo" on him. To grasp the full foreign-policy import, Bush nicknamed Jacques Chirac "Jackass Chirac."
We must also look at things from the viewpoint of the Russian oligarchs and the leaders of Germany and France to grasp their irritation with Bush. Yes, 9/11 was an unfortunate event. But in the grand scheme, the deaths of a few thousand Americans were not enough to justify an American president wheeling US foreign policy on it's heel and romancing the anti-NATO Vladimir Putin. (As for Blair, his position was very complex; we'll discuss that someday.)
To top it off, Bush's war on terror allowed Rumsfeld to order that US military bases be thrown up in some former Soviet vassal countries. This is just what Europe didn't want. They were trying to encircle Russia softly, softly. Not with anything so alarming as missiles and fighter jets perched on Russia's doorstep.
Here, the reader might ask whether Soros and the State faction aren't in the right -- at least, in their view if not their tactics. After all, we must be loyal to the NATO alliance for as long as the alliance stands. And by all accounts in the Western mainstream media, the Rose and Orange Revolutions -- even if they weren't really revolutions -- and getting rid of Milosevic are big gains for democracy.
I think the best answer is that one must be suspicious of the idea that democracy is served by a putsch masquerading as the Will of the People -- particularly if the putsch is engineered by governments and business interests from outside the country. The suspicion gathers force from the WSWS report on what has happened to democracy in Serbia and Georgia since the "People's Will" triumphed. Even though the report is biased against Running Dogs of Capitalism, it raises enough troubling points to sound a warning. Orchestrating the rise of governments that will march in lockstep with EU geopolitical designs is not necessarily the same as scoring a win on behalf of democracy.
All the above supports Stephen Cohen's observations, after Batchelor mentioned the impending announcement of joint China-Russia military exercises. Cohen enumerated reasons why Russia has come to feel encircled by the US. He finished by saying that the heavy-handed US involvement in the Ukraine election was the final straw. As Dr. Cohen put it, "It was too much."
I think Russia would have agreed to join the maneuvers in any case (reference the Shanghai Cooperative -- China's answer to Bush's Coalition of the Willing for fighting terrorism). Yet Russia's anger at the US about the Ukraine Affair probably caused Moscow to plan for much greater involvement with the maneuvers than originally planned.
And Cohen's stark summary of how Moscow would react to US involvement in Ukraine has been amply supported by recent pronouncements from Putin, which lambaste the USA. Alert readers might ask how it came to be that America was left holding the bag. That is the question, isn't it? It's well-documented that the Big Three and their go-fer countries in the EU did just as much meddling in Ukraine and other former Soviet republics as the USA and Russia. But to hear Putin tell it, it's all our fault. How did we end up in that position?
The best Pundita could do toward getting a handle on the answer was ask the crows for their opinion and brace herself for the inevitable disagreements between them, which usually only end when Pundita blows up a paper bag and pops it. However, those two members of the foreign policy team are Pundita's best source on Russian matters. They spend so much time flitting about the Russian embassy grounds in Washington that my nickname for them is Da and Nyet.
To my surprise, the crows were in perfect agreement in their reply. They strongly support the Russian embassy's policy toward free-ranging cats and evidentially anything that creeps and which could possibly be wired with a microphone.
From this, I'd surmise that we're getting the blame because Russia has an ocean between America, whereas Russia can't avoid attending EU barbecues and backyard sales. And perhaps Putin knows he can't afford to alienate all the oligarchs, particularly those who want to do big business with Europe. Another point is that Western Europe is a big buyer of Russian natural gas.
Having escaped the fate that Soros planned for him, how is our president elect dealing with the Russian frost? From his soft-pedal comments about the Ukraine election controversy, which were in sharp contrast to Powell's blunt and even rude language to Moscow, it seems he's trying to thread the camel.
One can appreciate the dilemma. Bush shouldn't alienate France, Germany and Jack Straw any more than he's already done. At the same time, he needs to find a way to reassure Putin and the Russian generals that the US doesn't want to restart the Cold War, any more than State has already helped to restart it.
I sense that Bush will delegate the problem to Condi; if so, we'll have to wait until Dr. Rice has settled into her duties at State before we can gauge whether the frost can be melted. Thank goodness she's fluent in Russian and knows more Russian history than most Russians. Also, she speaks fluent Petroleum. She probably has the planned location of every pipeline on the planet punched into her PDA. So it may be that another large check handed to Putin's government to help with oil exploration and/or pipeline building will figure somehow into smoothing ruffled feathers.
But here I recall another warning from Dr. Cohen, given many months ago. He told Batchelor's audience that throwing money at the situation won't cut it, if the Russians become truly angered at America's designs on their country. The warning makes sense. Just as we couldn't be placated with a large Saudi check after 9/11, one can presume the Russian generals -- and the Russian populace at large -- would spit on our money if it's not accompanied by a halt in what they now fear is a US attempt to bring Russia to her knees.
However, there's much more at stake for the US than cooled relations with Moscow. The US should encourage democracy movements around the globe and use our power to support and yes, even pressure nervous governments to stick with democratic reforms. But the story of State's actions in former USSR that emerges from reports posted on WSWS suggest that's not exactly what we've been doing.
To whatever extent our democracy programs have had good results in former Soviet regions, this seems to have come as a byproduct of supporting European Union geopolitics. That's putting the cart before the horse. It's also a threat to US national security interests because US support for EU strategies has been uncritical, if not blind.
From all the above, it should be clear that Americans got it somewhat backward, when we asked why France and Germany betrayed America on Iraq. They didn't betray us, from their point of view; it's just that we stopped going along with their program. That this program included selling weapons to Saddam on the eve of the US invasion -- well, such sales were not a new wrinkle.
Granted, the extent to which we'd been going along with the EU program, and exactly what we'd been doing in the process, was known only to a virtual handful of Americans inside the Beltway during the Clinton era. And because this is a representative democracy we elect people to do oversight of US government agencies for us. Yet clearly the oversight process broke down with regard to State -- and to such an extent that US defense policy took a back seat to serving Europe's geopolitical aims.
The good news is that we no longer need wonder why the Euro Three (actually, now the Euro Six) broke rank with the United States on how to deal with Tehran's nuclear weapon program. The answer is that they didn't break rank with us, we broke rank with them.
Perhaps all the above is another way of saying that we didn't have a good plan for how to proceed in relation to Russia after the Soviet Union collapsed. So we went with the European plan. Which brought us to today.
If you groan at the thought of spending hours on the World Socialist Web Site, I would urge you to at least skim the reports I hyperlinked above, and look through the two reports linked at the end of this post. One can't read back through the years of news stories on the WSWS without sensing that a huge mess is threatening to build in Eurasia. It shouldn't turn out that way -- not after all the American blood, sweat, tears, and tax dollars that went into winning the Cold War.
For those readers who would like to find a more objective assessment than the WSWS offers about US relations with Russia since the end of the Cold War, a good place to start is Stephen Cohen's cheerily titled Failed Crusade: America and the Tragedy of Post-Communist Russia."
"Great power rivalries erupt over disputed election in Ukraine"
"US intervenes in disputed Ukraine election: Who the hell asked you, Mr. Powell?"
Wednesday, December 22
To the ramparts, fellow billionaires! Save Russian Democracy!
"Pundita! Do you and your foreign policy team get TV reception in your cave? I just read your last post. What do you mean Bush wants to put democracy before expediency? Did you see him dodging all over the place about Putin in yesterday's press conference? Putin has announced he's going to appoint 80 governors instead of allowing them to be elected.
"There's no more democracy in Russia, just a show. Look at Putin's so-called election. Look at Russian interference in the Ukraine election. They can't hold an election there or anywhere in a former Soviet satellite without half a million outside observers and even that doesn't stop the ballot stuffing!
[Signed] Not Born Yesterday"
Dear NBY:
Let me see if I understand this correctly. All Russian elections are fixed. Ergo, Putin destroys Russian democracy by appointing governors instead of allowing elections.
My memory may be faulty here, but I seem to recall that Khodorkovsky was arrested on one of his rare visits to Russia, on his return from Sun Valley. Yes, this is the same Sun Valley in America where billionaires such as George Soros schmooze. In any case, Khodorkovsky is part of the Sun Valley crowd -- or he was, until his arrest.
And I seem to recall that at the time of Khodorkovsky's arrest, an American was president of Yukos. Let me see if I can come up with an appropriate analogy here....this would be something like a Russian citizen being president of Boeing.
Dear reader, it's time for Americans to wise up about our dear allies across the Pond. It was Vladimir Putin who warned the Bush administration that the Belgium Faction of the EU and Saddam Hussein were plotting petrocurrency war against the USA.
Out of a survey of corruption in 90 countries, Russia comes in at around 8. But most Americans can't appreciate the meaning of that statistic because the corruption in this country is of a different order. Or to be more precise, Russia has types of corruption that long ago disappeared from this country -- to the extent that such corruption existed here.
Russia not only has political and business corruption; the country also has administrative corruption, and of an order that is mind-boggling. Can you imagine having to pay a bribe just to register your child for public school? Or to get any kind of license, including a driver's license? This on top of license and registration fees.
And Russia has something called verticalization of corruption. That kind of corruption is distinct from the corruption represented by the financial clout of the Oligarchs, although both kinds of corruption intersect. But the Oligarchs had so much power when Putin came into office that it's misleading to think of it as corruption. It was an oligarchical government, which formed the woof of the tapestry of governments in Eurasia. That government is not gone yet, and the remanants are fighting tooth and nail to retain power.
Putin has the backing of the Russian public in his fight against corruption and his struggle to wrest power from the Oligarchs. As to his report card -- well, by coincidence, the more Putin has gone after corruption, the more trouble he's had from terrorist attacks. All of which supposedly carried out by Chechen separatists.
Much has been made of Putin's KGB background. If not for that background, he would have been dead of "natural causes" within a week of launching his anti-corruption campaign. This is because the big players are aware that Putin knows the corruption in Russia inside out, thanks to his KGB background. If anyone can take down the big players, it's Putin.
We can do our part by making sure that American oil interests stop using the war on terror as an excuse to meddle in former Soviet countries. We can also prod the state department to stop using every excuse to push Russia back into the Cold War posture.
"There's no more democracy in Russia, just a show. Look at Putin's so-called election. Look at Russian interference in the Ukraine election. They can't hold an election there or anywhere in a former Soviet satellite without half a million outside observers and even that doesn't stop the ballot stuffing!
[Signed] Not Born Yesterday"
Dear NBY:
Let me see if I understand this correctly. All Russian elections are fixed. Ergo, Putin destroys Russian democracy by appointing governors instead of allowing elections.
My memory may be faulty here, but I seem to recall that Khodorkovsky was arrested on one of his rare visits to Russia, on his return from Sun Valley. Yes, this is the same Sun Valley in America where billionaires such as George Soros schmooze. In any case, Khodorkovsky is part of the Sun Valley crowd -- or he was, until his arrest.
And I seem to recall that at the time of Khodorkovsky's arrest, an American was president of Yukos. Let me see if I can come up with an appropriate analogy here....this would be something like a Russian citizen being president of Boeing.
Dear reader, it's time for Americans to wise up about our dear allies across the Pond. It was Vladimir Putin who warned the Bush administration that the Belgium Faction of the EU and Saddam Hussein were plotting petrocurrency war against the USA.
Out of a survey of corruption in 90 countries, Russia comes in at around 8. But most Americans can't appreciate the meaning of that statistic because the corruption in this country is of a different order. Or to be more precise, Russia has types of corruption that long ago disappeared from this country -- to the extent that such corruption existed here.
Russia not only has political and business corruption; the country also has administrative corruption, and of an order that is mind-boggling. Can you imagine having to pay a bribe just to register your child for public school? Or to get any kind of license, including a driver's license? This on top of license and registration fees.
And Russia has something called verticalization of corruption. That kind of corruption is distinct from the corruption represented by the financial clout of the Oligarchs, although both kinds of corruption intersect. But the Oligarchs had so much power when Putin came into office that it's misleading to think of it as corruption. It was an oligarchical government, which formed the woof of the tapestry of governments in Eurasia. That government is not gone yet, and the remanants are fighting tooth and nail to retain power.
Putin has the backing of the Russian public in his fight against corruption and his struggle to wrest power from the Oligarchs. As to his report card -- well, by coincidence, the more Putin has gone after corruption, the more trouble he's had from terrorist attacks. All of which supposedly carried out by Chechen separatists.
Much has been made of Putin's KGB background. If not for that background, he would have been dead of "natural causes" within a week of launching his anti-corruption campaign. This is because the big players are aware that Putin knows the corruption in Russia inside out, thanks to his KGB background. If anyone can take down the big players, it's Putin.
We can do our part by making sure that American oil interests stop using the war on terror as an excuse to meddle in former Soviet countries. We can also prod the state department to stop using every excuse to push Russia back into the Cold War posture.
Monday, December 20
Stop, Look, Listen
"Pundita, I owe you an apology. I spent the past hour reading news stories and opinion about the US involvement in Ukraine's election. There is definitely another side to the story. I have two questions. Is Brzezinski insane? Why didn't the Guardian's Garton Ash throw a hissy fit about US meddling in Ukraine?
[Signed] Born Yesterday, After All"
Dear BYAA:
I'd say your tartness was within the margin of spirited debate, so no apology is necessary. However, Pundita's web log exists to point out the necessity for Americans outside government to become more knowledgeable about foreign affairs and US foreign policy. The flood of information makes this exercise difficult, so the tendency is to fall back on pundits and experts who will sort things out for us.
That is why I advised one reader to start at the start line, if he wanted reliable information on US foreign policy -- the start line being the White House and State Department. Those sources aren't going to tell the public all that's going on with US foreign policy initiatives; neither do the sources necessarily reflect the right (or wrong) policy approaches. But before you can have an informed opinion, first you need to get informed.
It's putting the cart before the horse to attempt to get informed by first following what reporters dig up, then reading "expert" analysis of the reports, then reading what pundits say about what the experts say about what the news reports say.
Reporting, expert analysis, and your favorite pundits can be valuable in helping you understand the actions of State and the White House, but first we need a ballpark idea about what State and the White House are doing. The easiest way to find out is to go the source for news on State and White House doings, which is their websites.
Getting into the ballpark is especially important during this period, during which we're fighting a hot war, working out a new direction for foreign policy, and implementing a new national security doctrine. It's easy to lump those three very distinct endeavors into one because they intersect at many points.
Yet we need to keep the distinctions clear if we want to think hard about US foreign policy. Otherwise, we find ourselves shutting out international news and analysis that contradicts our view of the war and national security, or vice versa.
In keeping with the spirit of the above advice, before going deeper into the flap about US involvement in Ukraine, we should first review State's position on Ukraine. The official site also provides information on how much and what kind of aid the US gave Ukraine (up to FY 2003).
So, first let's head to Foggy Bottom to bone up on the latest available country assessment for Ukraine.
It's important to consider that none of the official US aid was under the table. This means that whatever democracy programs the US funded in Ukraine through official channels, these were welcomed by the Ukraine government. Thus, none of that aid can be considered meddling.
Okay, now that we have the official view under our belt, we can proceed to question it. I don't know of any American old enough to remember the height of the Cold War who enjoys finding himself in the ungainly position of calling for a balanced view of the election situation in Ukraine. Yet the situation in Ukraine lays bare how US foreign policy developed in the post-Soviet era, which has given way to the post-9/11 era. And the situation in Ukraine illustrates that those two eras have collided.
Many Americans new to this stuff assume there was a US foreign policy vacuum after the Soviet Union ended. The only vacuum was in the reporting in the US news media; a post-Soviet US policy had taken shape even before Gorbachev dissolved the Soviet Union.
Americans who are new to following US foreign policy are just discovering Soros and Brzezinski, but those two have been around a long time. Brzezinski is not insane. He's a Cold War warrior. Old Cold War warriors don't fade away. They keep thinking up strategies for dealing with any projected geopolitical situation that could possibly be a threat to America.
Such warriors are part and parcel of being a superpower, with or without a war going on.
But there is a big difference between theory and how it's put into practice. Let's assume for a moment that Brzezinski is right -- that Ukraine represents one of the five key nations on earth. That assessment, if correct, would of course imply that Ukraine is strategically important to the USA. Even so, it wouldn't necessarily follow that America should alienate the other great nuclear power (Russia) by trying to promote a particular Ukrainian candidate on the proffered reason of "promoting democracy."
As I noted in the "Suggestions, anyone?" post, the Bush foreign policy is moored to the proper use of foreign policy, which is to defend and further US interests. The Clinton foreign policy was cut loose from that mooring; policy drifted toward "rescue" -- whether or not the rescue operation served US interests.
I interject that one should not leap to the conclusion that this rescue policy was in the spirit of the Good Samaritan -- unless we want to consider Europe the needy traveler. I joke that during the Clinton years, which saw Soros's great influence on State, US foreign policy was run out of a post box in Belgium. The joke probably overstates the point, but it does seem the US during the Clinton era was always acting in the EU's best interests, whether or not this served US interests. I suppose that's why Rumsfeld once observed that perhaps what State needed was an American desk.
In any case it's mixing apples with oranges, if you'll pardon the expression, to say that US support for the Orange candidate is support for democracy. And it's sophistry to argue that supporting the Orange candidate is perfectly in line with Bush's call for this to be Liberty's century.
Of course we want to see democracy spring up everywhere. This is on the theory that democratic countries don't fall prey to widespread civil unrest and aggression against neighbors, and don't produce terrorists who will lob bombs at us. However, the way the US players went about promoting democracy in Ukraine helped bring that country to the edge of civil war, and raised the specter of a breakup of the country.
The US does not carry all the blame for what happened in the aftermath of the disputed Ukraine election. And even with no US involvement, the situation might easily have played out exactly the same. But if we are trying to feel our way toward Liberty's century, we must closely study US involvement in Ukraine for lessons and warnings.
There is good reason to suggest that Soros's tactics, which were perfected in Georgia (and used in this country in the attempt to put Kerry in the White House) were misapplied in Ukraine. This was pointed out by one of John Batchelor's experts on Russia and ex-USSR countries, Dr. Stephen Cohen, during Batchelor's 11/30 broadcast. Cohen noted that everyone in Georgia was sick of Schevardnadze and wanted him out of power. In Ukraine the population is sharply and passionately divided in support of the Orange or Blue candidate. Thus, indiscriminately applying Soros's tactics in Georgia to the situation in Ukraine had a very different result in Ukraine.
One might ask how State overlooked the striking difference between the situation in Georgia and Ukraine. I don't know the answer yet -- or even whether State overlooked in ignorance. Leaping to conclusions in this area is unwise. In any case, by accident or design, State-supported actions in Ukraine got Putin and his generals hopping mad.
If you say nuts to that -- well, if we had nothing else on our plate, it might even be fun to rub Russia's nose in it, just for some payback. But seeings how we're in the middle of a hot war and all that, we do need to pick our hazing wisely. Or at least, watch our timing. Sitting Putin on a whoopee cushion at this particular moment in history does carry unpleasant consequences for the US.
With regard to your second question, kindly refer to my post on British pundits, in which I touch on the Guardian Unlimited newspaper. That the Guardian is a leftist publication and that Garton-Ash is a Bush basher has to be seen against the larger picture. The Guardian is a United Kingdom publication. So of course the Guardian's columnists support British activities that are perceived by the Guardian columnists as in the best interests of the UK.
Recommended reading:
"U.S. Money Helped Opposition in Ukraine"
Details the US organizations involved in Ukraine
"Is US Meddling in Ukraine Election?"
Washington Post; story links to Guardian Unlimited's Steele and Garton-Ash opinion pieces
"EU Promises More Aid to Ukraine After Elections" and check out several stories on the Ukraine election and controversy in this Ukraine newspaper
[Signed] Born Yesterday, After All"
Dear BYAA:
I'd say your tartness was within the margin of spirited debate, so no apology is necessary. However, Pundita's web log exists to point out the necessity for Americans outside government to become more knowledgeable about foreign affairs and US foreign policy. The flood of information makes this exercise difficult, so the tendency is to fall back on pundits and experts who will sort things out for us.
That is why I advised one reader to start at the start line, if he wanted reliable information on US foreign policy -- the start line being the White House and State Department. Those sources aren't going to tell the public all that's going on with US foreign policy initiatives; neither do the sources necessarily reflect the right (or wrong) policy approaches. But before you can have an informed opinion, first you need to get informed.
It's putting the cart before the horse to attempt to get informed by first following what reporters dig up, then reading "expert" analysis of the reports, then reading what pundits say about what the experts say about what the news reports say.
Reporting, expert analysis, and your favorite pundits can be valuable in helping you understand the actions of State and the White House, but first we need a ballpark idea about what State and the White House are doing. The easiest way to find out is to go the source for news on State and White House doings, which is their websites.
Getting into the ballpark is especially important during this period, during which we're fighting a hot war, working out a new direction for foreign policy, and implementing a new national security doctrine. It's easy to lump those three very distinct endeavors into one because they intersect at many points.
Yet we need to keep the distinctions clear if we want to think hard about US foreign policy. Otherwise, we find ourselves shutting out international news and analysis that contradicts our view of the war and national security, or vice versa.
In keeping with the spirit of the above advice, before going deeper into the flap about US involvement in Ukraine, we should first review State's position on Ukraine. The official site also provides information on how much and what kind of aid the US gave Ukraine (up to FY 2003).
So, first let's head to Foggy Bottom to bone up on the latest available country assessment for Ukraine.
It's important to consider that none of the official US aid was under the table. This means that whatever democracy programs the US funded in Ukraine through official channels, these were welcomed by the Ukraine government. Thus, none of that aid can be considered meddling.
Okay, now that we have the official view under our belt, we can proceed to question it. I don't know of any American old enough to remember the height of the Cold War who enjoys finding himself in the ungainly position of calling for a balanced view of the election situation in Ukraine. Yet the situation in Ukraine lays bare how US foreign policy developed in the post-Soviet era, which has given way to the post-9/11 era. And the situation in Ukraine illustrates that those two eras have collided.
Many Americans new to this stuff assume there was a US foreign policy vacuum after the Soviet Union ended. The only vacuum was in the reporting in the US news media; a post-Soviet US policy had taken shape even before Gorbachev dissolved the Soviet Union.
Americans who are new to following US foreign policy are just discovering Soros and Brzezinski, but those two have been around a long time. Brzezinski is not insane. He's a Cold War warrior. Old Cold War warriors don't fade away. They keep thinking up strategies for dealing with any projected geopolitical situation that could possibly be a threat to America.
Such warriors are part and parcel of being a superpower, with or without a war going on.
But there is a big difference between theory and how it's put into practice. Let's assume for a moment that Brzezinski is right -- that Ukraine represents one of the five key nations on earth. That assessment, if correct, would of course imply that Ukraine is strategically important to the USA. Even so, it wouldn't necessarily follow that America should alienate the other great nuclear power (Russia) by trying to promote a particular Ukrainian candidate on the proffered reason of "promoting democracy."
As I noted in the "Suggestions, anyone?" post, the Bush foreign policy is moored to the proper use of foreign policy, which is to defend and further US interests. The Clinton foreign policy was cut loose from that mooring; policy drifted toward "rescue" -- whether or not the rescue operation served US interests.
I interject that one should not leap to the conclusion that this rescue policy was in the spirit of the Good Samaritan -- unless we want to consider Europe the needy traveler. I joke that during the Clinton years, which saw Soros's great influence on State, US foreign policy was run out of a post box in Belgium. The joke probably overstates the point, but it does seem the US during the Clinton era was always acting in the EU's best interests, whether or not this served US interests. I suppose that's why Rumsfeld once observed that perhaps what State needed was an American desk.
In any case it's mixing apples with oranges, if you'll pardon the expression, to say that US support for the Orange candidate is support for democracy. And it's sophistry to argue that supporting the Orange candidate is perfectly in line with Bush's call for this to be Liberty's century.
Of course we want to see democracy spring up everywhere. This is on the theory that democratic countries don't fall prey to widespread civil unrest and aggression against neighbors, and don't produce terrorists who will lob bombs at us. However, the way the US players went about promoting democracy in Ukraine helped bring that country to the edge of civil war, and raised the specter of a breakup of the country.
The US does not carry all the blame for what happened in the aftermath of the disputed Ukraine election. And even with no US involvement, the situation might easily have played out exactly the same. But if we are trying to feel our way toward Liberty's century, we must closely study US involvement in Ukraine for lessons and warnings.
There is good reason to suggest that Soros's tactics, which were perfected in Georgia (and used in this country in the attempt to put Kerry in the White House) were misapplied in Ukraine. This was pointed out by one of John Batchelor's experts on Russia and ex-USSR countries, Dr. Stephen Cohen, during Batchelor's 11/30 broadcast. Cohen noted that everyone in Georgia was sick of Schevardnadze and wanted him out of power. In Ukraine the population is sharply and passionately divided in support of the Orange or Blue candidate. Thus, indiscriminately applying Soros's tactics in Georgia to the situation in Ukraine had a very different result in Ukraine.
One might ask how State overlooked the striking difference between the situation in Georgia and Ukraine. I don't know the answer yet -- or even whether State overlooked in ignorance. Leaping to conclusions in this area is unwise. In any case, by accident or design, State-supported actions in Ukraine got Putin and his generals hopping mad.
If you say nuts to that -- well, if we had nothing else on our plate, it might even be fun to rub Russia's nose in it, just for some payback. But seeings how we're in the middle of a hot war and all that, we do need to pick our hazing wisely. Or at least, watch our timing. Sitting Putin on a whoopee cushion at this particular moment in history does carry unpleasant consequences for the US.
With regard to your second question, kindly refer to my post on British pundits, in which I touch on the Guardian Unlimited newspaper. That the Guardian is a leftist publication and that Garton-Ash is a Bush basher has to be seen against the larger picture. The Guardian is a United Kingdom publication. So of course the Guardian's columnists support British activities that are perceived by the Guardian columnists as in the best interests of the UK.
Recommended reading:
"U.S. Money Helped Opposition in Ukraine"
Details the US organizations involved in Ukraine
"Is US Meddling in Ukraine Election?"
Washington Post; story links to Guardian Unlimited's Steele and Garton-Ash opinion pieces
"EU Promises More Aid to Ukraine After Elections" and check out several stories on the Ukraine election and controversy in this Ukraine newspaper
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