INTERVIEW / Jonah Raskin : Steven Halliwell, To Russia With Love

To Russia with love:
A Rag Blog interview with Steven Halliwell

What Russia shows us is that there’s no easy fix. Getting to a common global discussion is the biggest challenge of the 21st century.

By Jonah Raskin / The Rag Blog / June 1, 2012

Steven Halliwell might be our ambassador to Russia -- had there been a revolution in the U.S.A. in the 1960s.

A member of SDS, and a protester arrested at Columbia in the spring of 1968, Halliwell has long been an outlier. In his SDS days, while most of his friends and comrades were gazing at China, Cuba, and Vietnam, Halliwell learned Russian and turned his eyes on Russian history, the Soviet Union, and the Kremlin.

Revolutions -- Russian and American -- have occupied his thoughts ever since 1963, when he traveled to the U.S.S.R, as part of the first student exchange program between the U.S. and the Soviet Union that helped, albeit in a small way, to end the Cold War.

The names have changed, of course. It’s not the U.S.S.R. or Leningrad anymore. Still, over the course of the past 50 years, Halliwell has gone back to the same familiar and yet not so familiar places dozens of times as a student, tourist, and entrepreneur.

Few Americans in or out of academia and in or out of the diplomatic service know Russia as well as he does, and few are as emotionally and intellectually connected as he is to the land of Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, perestroika, Putin, and the new generation that’s demanding human and individual rights.

Born in New Jersey in 1943, Halliwell attended Wesleyan and Columbia, taught college in Vermont, and worked at the United Nations when Andrew Young was President Jimmy Carter’s UN Ambassador. In 1985, he joined Citibank and helped to open the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe to American enterprise.

In 1994, he left Citibank to become the Chief Financial Officer of a U.S. Government-backed investment fund for Russia. From 1997 to 2010, he ran his own investment firm, River Capital International.

With his wife, Anne, he lives outside New York, not far from his children and grandchildren. I’ve known the Halliwells since the 1960s, and, while they’ve moved on from their days in SDS, they’re as much a part of SDS history as the SDS members, such as Mike Spiegel, Bob Pardun, and Carl Davidson, who served with Steve on SDS’s National Interim Committee in 1967-1968.

On the cusp of 70, he might be too old to serve as the U.S. Ambassador to Russia. Moreover, the current U.S. Ambassador, Michael McFaul, is a friend. Behind the scenes, and at meetings, as well as over the Internet, he provides a living link between New York and Moscow, Americans and Russians, and between the land of Tolstoy and Dostoevsky and the land of Herman Melville and Walt Whitman.

Steven Halliwell: To Russia with love.
Jonah Raskin: For decades, I’ve been listening to you tell memorable stories about Russia. What really sticks in your mind?

Steven Halliwell: Some moments are fun, others are sad. Lots of people died in the 1990s, including a banker who was a friend. The head of a company I knew was shot leaving his apartment and his seven-year-old daughter was killed. Early on, I took Russians through a Citibank trading floor -- a real market in action -- and inevitably they’d say, “it’s too noisy for anyone to work!”

You were in SDS and part of the New Left. How did that experience help you to understand Soviet communism?

Complete disconnect. Communism was a way to force industrialization and the modernization of agriculture. The New Left was about post-industrial society, and how to manage the incredible surplus created by technology in a democratic order. I found U.S.A. "Communists" – members of the Communist Party and Progressive Labor – to be troglodytes.

How did your New Left experience blind you to Russia?

Despite my training in Russian history in the 1960s, I thought that perestroika could lead to a new democratic political order and a market economy. Russians were more practically minded. They focused on surviving the collapse of the Soviet system and getting goodies -- TV's, laptops, pretty clothes, makeup, and credit cards -- from what they call the "civilized" world.

In 1968 and 1969, when activists and protestors thought of Russia they thought about the Russian Revolution, Lenin, and the Winter Palace. Now, if they think about Russia it’s probably about corruption, vast fortunes, and alcoholism. What’s the real Russia?

Alcohol was always an issue, and Russia has always been corrupt, including during the Soviet period. If a Politburo member needed surgery in London, they’d have an Aeroflot jet ready in hours. Same old same old.

As a student of history in the 1960s what drew you to the history of Russia and the Soviet Union?

Growing up in a WASP family in the 1950's, there was something liberating about Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, and the big questions they posed in their writing. At the same time, Russia was the Enemy in the Cold War. I found the tension fascinating and started to learn Russian at 14.

It must be difficult to obtain accurate information these days from Russians about their own society because it’s closed in many ways. How do you do it?

I could tell you... but then I would have to kill you. But seriously, the blogosphere in Russia is very active. Of course, you never use Putin's name in a phone or Skype call because that's what the monitors are listening for.

I’ve heard you talk about the “backwardness” of Russian society. What do you have in mind?

Russia is so backward it might be forward. Russia, because of its geographical location, has been working for hundreds of years on how to reconcile Confucian, Greco-Roman, Islamic, and Judeo-Christian traditions. What Russia shows us is that there’s no easy fix. Getting to a common global discussion is the biggest challenge of the 21st century.

How would you describe the Obama administration’s policy vis-à-vis Russia?

Michael McFaul, Obama's ambassador to Russia and a friend, is smart, pragmatic, and youthful. He and Hillary Clinton have the right mix of pressure and conciliation. The missile shield in Eastern Europe is the most volatile and hardest issue to address.

Is the ruling class of Russia essentially like the American ruling class?

I don't believe there is an American "ruling class." Russia's current rulers are heavily skewed toward ex-KGB people who only know how to take value, not add it. There’s a heavy criminal element at the top.

What does recent Russian experience tell you about democracy as a political system?

The most common slogan in the recent Russian demonstrations was "We are not cattle" -- an indication of the growing sense of individual rights. Russia has no history of incremental reform, which will make getting to democracy very difficult.

What do you love most about Russia and Russians?

Anne and I have met many beautiful, talented, dedicated people. There’s a creative intensity that goes hand-in-hand with hard-nosed survival in a dysfunctional world.

What do you most detest about Russians?

"Detest" is the wrong word. A young Mexican Sovietologist wrote an insightful article entitled "Russia as a Borderline Personality." The damage done by so many years of terror, corruption, absolutism, and murder is still very pervasive.

Did the fall of the Soviet Union influence the lives of ordinary Russians?

It's given the urban younger generation a chance to see how the rest of the world looks. Forty percent of 18 to 24 year olds say they’d like to emigrate. For poorer rural and industrial working people, the loss of the old subsidies (which were unsustainable) has been a nightmare. Essentially, power based on political standing has been traded for power based on money.

Do you see parallels between American and Russian radicals?

The history of the Russian Revolution, which I was studying at Columbia during the heyday of SDS, showed me that a student movement that idealized the downtrodden (in the 1860's) could turn to underground violence (in the 1880's). The same kind of cult-like idiocy in the U.S. destroyed a broad-based movement.

Is it possible for western investment in Russia to benefit Russian society as a whole and not simply a small elite?

There has already been a huge increase in the standard of living in Russian cities, thanks in large part to Western investment. The Russian elite has benefited, not from Western investment, but from stealing export dollars. Russia exports seven million barrels of crude oil every day. At $100 per barrel, that's $700 million dollars a day of hard currency. There are a handful of decent Russians managing profitable businesses that raise the standard of living, but most of the oligarchs with access to the huge flood of resource dollars use it to buy respectability in Europe and the U.S.

How do you feel when you see images and read stories about Russian citizens protesting Putin and his policies?

I hope it continues. Putin can’t tolerate widespread middle class dissent. He will crush the Internet if that proves to be an organizing tool. There are reports that Putin plans to create a National Guard of 300-400,000 troops answerable directly to him. He has also moved the former head of emergency response into the governorship of Moscow. Not good signs.

What kinds of legacies still exist from the days of the Cold War and the U.S./ U.S.S.R. rivalry?

As long the U.S. is a global power, there will always be issues and rivalries. At some point, the overseas Russian communities will play a seminal role in changing the place. As we learned in the civil rights movement, you can never break a police state from the inside alone. Overseas Russians will at some point take on the challenge of bringing Russia into the 21st century.

If you could be in Moscow next week what would a day in your life look like?

I have partners there and there are always interesting projects to consider. Business meetings are pretty much like here, as long as you stay away from government toadies. There are great restaurants now -- when I went to Moscow for Citibank in 1987, there was only one privately owned restaurant in the whole city. Now there are thousands.

You’ve known New York bankers and Moscow bankers? Are bankers more or less the same here and there?

Bankers are people -- some are good guys, some are rotten. During the 1990's, there was much more gangster-type banking in Moscow with automatic weapons at the doors. Today, the biggest growth area is consumer finance -- home mortgages, credit cards. There is still a very stunted corporate lending market, because companies are very opaque and lending is politicized.

What is it that links the Steve Halliwell of SDS days with the Steve Halliwell who has invested money in the Soviet Union and Russia? Are you the same person?

The main link is Anne, my partner and love of 44 years. We came to SDS from very different backgrounds and personal agendas, but somehow it has worked. She and I have evolved in our views over the years, as have our former comrades, but at the core we’re still the same people who fell in love inside the movement. It's been and continues to be a fascinating journey.

[Jonah Raskin is the author of For the Hell of It: The Life and Times of Abbie Hoffman, and editor of The Radical Jack London: Writings on War and Revolution. A former Yippie, he is a a regular contributor to The Rag Blog. Read more articles by Jonah Raskin on The Rag Blog.]

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Ted McLaughlin : Republicans Play Political Football With START Treaty

Political cartoon by Matson / Roll Call.

UPDATE: December 22, 2010 -- The New START arms control treaty with Russia was ratified by the Senate today by a 71-26 vote, with 13 Republicans crossing the aisle to support it. But they did so in defiance of the Republican leadership which opposed the treaty to the end -- after making unsuccessful attempts to sabotage it with amendments that would have made the treaty unacceptable to the Russians.

The Republicans, the START Treaty,
and the "No" game

Congressional Republicans are treating the issue like another political football.

By Ted McLaughlin / The Rag Blog / December 21, 2010

It looks like the Republicans are still playing the "No" game, where they try to delay or stop anything President Obama tries to accomplish. The difference this time is that their obstructionism will make life more dangerous -- both for Americans and for those living in other countries. That's because this time their little game may determine whether the number of nuclear weapons in the world is reduced or increased.

Last April the United States and Russia agreed, after serious negotiations, on a new Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START). The new treaty, signed by Presidents Obama and Medvedev, would reduce the strategic nuclear weapons of both countries by an additional 30%. There is little doubt that the Russians will confirm the treaty, since Putin gets whatever he wants from the Russian Duma (legislature). The only doubt is whether the U.S. Senate will ratify the treaty.

It takes a two-thirds vote of the Senate to ratify a treaty with another country, and although a clear majority of the Senate is in favor of ratification, it remains to be seen whether the magic number of 67 can be reached. That's because many Republicans, including the party leadership in the Senate, have come out against approving the treaty. One senator even had the temerity to suggest there is no reason to rush into approving the treaty -- although voting on the treaty eight MONTHS after both presidents signed it can hardly be called a rush to judgment.

The Republicans have tried to give the impression over and over again that the treaty was unverifiable and would put the United States at a disadvantage somehow. Both of those charges are ridiculous. The fact is that all of the Joint Chiefs of Staff of the United States Military are enthusiastically in favor of the START treaty. I can't believe they would be in favor of any treaty that disadvantaged the United States or weakened our defenses.

In addition, all of the former (and the current) Secretary of States (including the ones who served in Republican administrations) have come out in favor of the treaty. And all of our NATO allies (who are probably in more danger from Russian weapons than we are) are in favor of the treaty. In fact, it seems that the only opponents of the START treaty are some Congressional Republicans, and they're treating the issue like another political football. They just don't want to let President Obama have any kind of accomplishment -- even one that makes the world a little safer place.

The Republicans seem to think they can kill the treaty (showing their fringe right-wing base how anti-Obama they are) and nothing will really change with the world balance of power. Unfortunately, that's just not true. The Republicans have tried to amend the treaty, but that is just an effort to kill it. Any amendment would mean the two countries would have to go back and negotiate all over again, and the Russians are in no mood to do that.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said, "The START agreement, which was drafted on the basis of strict parity, completely meets the national interests of both Russia and the United States. It cannot be reopened, becoming the subject of new negotiations." Putin, the real power in Russia, went even further. He said the failure to ratify the treaty would be "dumb," and would most likely be the start of a new arms race -- he said Russia would have to take some kind of action in response.

So things are not going to stay the same no matter what the Senate does. If they ratify the treaty, nuclear arms will be reduced by a significant 30%. If they don't, the Russians are likely to increase their nuclear weapons total (and we would probably do the same) -- putting the Doomsday clock a few minutes closer to midnight. And I couldn't really blame the Russians if they reacted in that way.

Why should they trust us if we refuse to ratify a reduction in nuclear weapons? Remember, we are the only nation on Earth that has ever used nuclear weapons. We are also the only nation that has refused to guarantee that we won't launch a first strike of nuclear weapons. Those two facts together make us look like a very dangerous foe -- a foe that may not be trustworthy.

It is extremely important that the United States ratify this treaty, especially after all the international relations that were seriously damaged by the Bush administration. It is critical that President Obama be viewed by the world as restoring the United States as a trustworthy partner in establishing world peace (and that he be viewed as having the internal power to do that). If the Republicans are able to kill the treaty it will damage our relations abroad -- among our friends and our enemies.

It looks like the vote will be close [though things are looking better as of this writing]. All of the Republican's "poison pill" amendments have been easily defeated, but not by two-thirds votes (like the treaty would need for ratification). The Democrats say they have 57 votes from their own caucus (55 Democrats and both independents -- Sanders and Lieberman). Wyden (Oregon) is absent because he just had cancer surgery. That means 10 Republican votes will be necessary for ratification.

According to Sen. Schumer (New York), there are currently five Republicans who say they will vote for the START treaty -- Cochran (Mississippi), Collins (Maine), Snowe (Maine), Voinovich (Ohio), and Lugar (Indiana). That means five more Republican votes will be needed, and it's anyone's guess as to who they will be or whether it's even possible.

Even though I think it's bad politics, I can sort of understand the Republican desire to obstruct President Obama from accomplishing anything. But this time they've stepped over the line. This time they're playing a dangerous game of international political chicken. I wonder if they know that -- or even care.

[Rag Blog contributor Ted McLaughlin also posts at jobsanger.]

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Amy Goodman : Climate Change is the Real Deal

This Greenland glacier split in two, sending a 100 sqare mile iceberg floating off into the Arctic Ocean. Image from Mirror, U.K.
News at 11:
How climate change affects you

By Amy Goodman / August 13, 2010

Our daily weather reports, cheerfully presented with flashy graphics and state-of-the-art animation, appear to relay more and more information.

And yet, no matter how glitzy the presentation, a key fact is invariably omitted. Imagine if, after flashing the words "extreme weather" to grab our attention, the reports flashed "global warming." Then we would know not only to wear lighter clothes or carry an umbrella, but that we have to do something about climate change.

I put the question to Jeff Masters, co-founder and director of meteorology at Weather Underground, an Internet weather information service. Masters writes a popular blog on weather, and doesn't shy away from linking extreme weather to climate change:

"Heat, heat, heat is the name of the game on planet Earth this year," he told me, as the world is beset with extreme weather events that have caused the death of thousands and the displacement of millions.

Wildfires in Russia have blanketed the country with smoke, exacerbating the hottest summer there in 1,000 years. Torrential rains in Asia have caused massive flooding and deadly landslides in Pakistan, Kashmir, Afghanistan, and China. An ice shelf in Greenland has broken off, sending an ice island four times the size of Manhattan into the ocean. Droughts threaten Niger and the Sahel.

Masters relates stark statistics:

• 2010 has seen the most national extreme heat records for a single year: 17.
• The past decade was the hottest decade in the historical record.
• The first half of 2010 was the warmest such six-month period in the planet's history.
• The five warmest months in history for the tropical Atlantic have all occurred this year (likely leading to more frequent and severe Atlantic hurricanes).

"We will start seeing more and more years like this year when you get these amazing events that caused tremendous death and destruction," Masters said. "As this extreme weather continues to increase in the coming decades and the population increases, the ability of the international community to respond and provide aid to victims will be stretched to the limit."

Men row a boat carrying supplies while fleeing the flooded village of Karam Pur in Pakistan's Sindh province on August 10, 2010. Photo by Akhtar Soomro / Reuters.
And yet the UN talks aimed at climate change seem poised for collapse.

When the Copenhagen climate talks last December were derailed, with select industrialized nations, led by the United States, offering a "take it or leave it" accord, many developing nations decided to leave it. The so-called Copenhagen Accord is seen as a tepid, nonbinding document that was forced on the poorer countries as a ploy to allow countries like the U.S., Canada, and China to escape the legally binding greenhouse-gas emissions targets of the Kyoto Protocol, which is up for renewal.

Bolivia, for example, is pursuing a more aggressive global agreement on emissions. It's calling for strict, legally binding limits on emissions, rather than the voluntary goals set forth in the Copenhagen Accord. When Bolivia refused to sign on to the accord, the U.S. denied it millions in promised aid money. Bolivia's United Nations ambassador, Pablo Solon, told me: "We said: ‘You can keep your money. We're not fighting for a couple of coins. We are fighting for life.'"

While Bolivia did succeed in passing a UN resolution last month affirming the right to water and sanitation as a human right, a first for the world body, that doesn't change the fact that as Bolivia's glaciers melt as a result of climate change, its water supply is threatened.

Pacific Island nations like Tuvalu may disappear from the planet entirely if sea levels continue to rise, which is another consequence of global warming.

The U.N. climate conference will convene in Cancun, Mexico, in December, where prospects for global consensus with binding commitments seem increasingly unlikely. Ultimately, policy in the United States, the greatest polluter in human history, must be changed. That will come only from people in the United States making the vital connection between our local weather and global climate change. What better way than through the daily drumbeat of the weather forecasts? Meteorologist Jeff Masters defined for me the crux of the problem:

A lot of TV meteorologists are very skeptical that human-caused global climate change is real. They've been seduced by the view pushed by the fossil-fuel industry that humans really aren't responsible ... we're fighting a battle against an enemy that's very well-funded, that's intent on providing disinformation about what the real science says.

It just may take a weatherperson to tell which way the wind blows.

Copyright © 2010 Truthdig, L.L.C.

[Amy Goodman is the host of "Democracy Now!," a daily international TV/radio news hour airing on 800 stations in North America. She was awarded the 2008 Right Livelihood Award, dubbed the “Alternative Nobel” prize, and received the award in the Swedish Parliament in December. Denis Moynihan contributed research to this column.]

Source / Truthdig / CommonDreams

American tourists visiting Red Square wear masks to protect them from Moscow's air, filled with toxic smoke from raging wildfires. Photo by Pavel Golovkin / AP.
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Obama's Nuclear Gambit : Savvy or Softy?

Above, John Bolton: a neocon looks backward. Below, Barack Obama with Russian president Dmitry Medvedev. Photo by Dmitry Astakhov / AFP / Getty Images.
Obama's nuclear gambit:
Cold warrior Bolton says he gave too much

These views never made much sense during the dreary days of the Cold War. They are even sillier and more self-defeating in the present context.

By Steve Weissman / July 14, 2009

Former UN Ambassador John Bolton, the mustachioed neocon, sometimes gets it half right. President Barack Obama is, in fact, reducing America's nuclear advantage over Russia, just as Bolton argues. But the hell-for-leather Bolton fails completely to understand what Obama is doing and why, as do many Obama supporters.

"Americans may have voted for a lower profile in Iraq, but they did not vote for a weaker United States globally," Bolton wrote right before Obama's trip to Moscow.

Obama would, in Bolton's view, give the Russians everything they wanted: "Major new restrictions on strategic nuclear weapons, postponing construction on US missile-defense installations in Poland and the Czech Republic and, indeed, downsizing America's entire missile-defense program, sidelining Georgia's and Ukraine's NATO membership applications, and leaning hard on Israel to stop all West Bank settlement construction and accept a Palestinian state."

Caught up in yesterday's Cold War, Bolton can only see these as unwarranted concessions to an unrelenting rival, for which the United States would get little in return.

After the signing of the "Joint Understanding" in Moscow, Bolton berated Obama even more. "Obama's policy is risky for America and its global allies who shelter under our nuclear umbrella," Bolton wrote. "Although Obama hopes dramatic US nuclear weapons reductions will discourage proliferation, the actual result will be the exact opposite."

No doubt, Bolton is playing Republican politics by painting Obama as a naïve idealist who would endanger American security and that of our allies, notably the Israelis.

Sadly, many nonpartisan analysts join Bolton in seeing Obama's efforts through the prism of an outdated arms race with the Soviet Union. They also see American military power as the prime deterrent to the nuclear ambitions of Iran, North Korea and any other nation that might seek the bomb.

These views never made much sense during the dreary days of the Cold War. They are even sillier and more self-defeating in the present context.

To expand on Henry Kissinger's recent remark in Der Spiegel, Obama works like a chess master playing several matches at the same time. In playing the Russians, he started from a simple calculation. The United States has enjoyed an overwhelming nuclear superiority over both Russia and the Chinese, as Keir A. Lieber and Daryl G. Press explained in the March 2006 issue of Foreign Affairs.

"Today, for the first time in almost 50 years, the United States stands on the verge of attaining nuclear primacy," they wrote. "It will probably soon be possible for the United States to destroy the long-range nuclear arsenals of Russia or China with a first strike."

With increasing tensions between the Russians and the West since 2006, they have apparently made some efforts to catch up. But, even with America's nuclear advantage, Washington found no way to use it to modify Russia's behavior, not even in Georgia and Ukraine. Short of threatening a nuclear shoot-out, having more nukes than Moscow actually hurt rather than helped.

Obama has opted to play a softer game against the Russians, to which they responded by not standing in the way of a new deal for an airbase in Kyrgyzstan and opening their own airspace for American supply flights to US and NATO troops in Afghanistan. Better that Russia help persuade Obama to get out of Afghanistan while he still can, but give the two governments credit for moving toward win-win agreements rather than the win-lose confrontations of the past.

Obama's second chess game tries to get Moscow to help pressure Tehran to rein in its nuclear energy program and stop short of atomic weapons. Here the Russians have mixed interests. They do not look happily on the prospect of nearby Iran getting the bomb and have quietly put obstacles in the way during its construction of the Iranian nuclear reactor in Bushehr. But the Russians have a large commercial interest in providing the reactor and other nuclear equipment, and also in selling costly conventional weapons, not the least anti-aircraft defenses to protect Iran against Israel or American air strikes.

In a third chess game, Obama is playing directly with Iran and other countries looking for nuclear arsenals of their own. Without Russia and the United States cutting their own nuclear arsenals, as the two countries committed to do in the Nuclear Proliferation Treaty, Obama has no chance of bringing Iran and the others to the table.

This is where Bolton and those who share his views most misunderstand reality. American military power failed utterly to prevent China, India, Pakistan and Israel from getting nuclear weapons, and it will not stop any other nation that sees the bomb as a way to deter a military attack by rivals, large or small.

The most dramatic evidence of this came from the former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, in the recently released transcripts of his interrogations by and casual conversations with the FBI. Saddam, it turns out, let the Bush administration believe he had nukes and other weapons of mass destruction because he feared looking weak to Iran.

As the Arabic-speaking FBI interrogator summed it up, "Hussein stated he was more concerned about Iran discovering Iraq's weaknesses and vulnerabilities than the repercussions of the United States for his refusal to allow UN inspectors back into Iraq."

The ruse cost Saddam his country and his life. But that is how important nuclear deterrence has become to the less-than-Great Powers of the Middle East and Persian Gulf. Obama, the chess master, hopes to find a way around the problem with his nuclear summit in Washington next March. In the meantime, he would do well to stop the threats to Iran coming from the Israelis and from within his own administration.

[A veteran of the Berkeley Free Speech Movement and the New Left monthly Ramparts, Steve Weissman lived for many years in London, working as a magazine writer and television producer. He now lives and works in France.]

Source / truthout

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Ritter: Obama Needs to Learn the Truth About Iran

Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, doing his best impersonation of a Bond villain, tours a Russian facility last summer that produces advanced surface-to-air missiles. AP pool photo / Aleksey Nikolskyi.
A Lesson in International Gamesmanship: Barack Obama, Meet Team B
By Scott Ritter / March 13, 2009

President Obama received a lesson in international gamesmanship last week, when his secret offer to trade the deployment of a controversial missile defense system in Eastern Europe for Russian assistance in getting Iran to back down from its nuclear program was publicly rebuffed. The lesson? You don’t get something for nothing, especially when the something you’re looking for is, itself, nothing.

If the members of the Obama administration would bother to take a stroll down memory lane, they might recall that once upon a time there was a document called the anti-ballistic missile treaty, signed in 1972 between the United States and the former Soviet Union, which recognized that anti-missile defense shields were inherently destabilizing, and as such should not be deployed. The ABM treaty represented the foundational agreement for a series of strategic arms limitation and arms reduction agreements that followed. President Obama was 10 years old when that treaty was signed. He was 40 years old when President George W. Bush withdrew from it, in December 2001, and set in motion a series of events that saw arms control between the U.S. and Russia completely unravel. The proposed U.S. missile defense shield, to be deployed in Poland and the Czech Republic, had the Russians talking about scrapping the INF treaty (which eliminated two classes of nuclear-armed ballistic missiles that threatened Europe) and deploying highly accurate SS-21 “Iskander” missiles within striking range of the proposed Polish interceptor site.

Russia did not create the missile defense system crisis. The United States did, and, as such, cannot expect to suddenly receive diplomatic credit when it puts this controversial program on the foreign policy gaming table as if it were a legitimate chip to be bargained away.

Russia has always, correctly, claimed that any missile defense system deployed in Eastern Europe can only be directed at Russia. While both the Bush and Obama administrations denied that was the case, Poland has all but admitted its concerns are not about missiles coming from Tehran, but rather missiles coming from Moscow. The American “sweetener” for a potential Polish loss of a missile shield is to offer Poland advanced Patriot surface-to-air missiles, whose intended target is clearly not a Persian missile which cannot reach Polish soil, but rather Russian missiles and aircraft which can.

There are three basic facts that the Obama administration needs to address, but as of yet has not: First, missile defense systems are inherently destabilizing and only contribute to the acquisition of offensive counters designed to defeat those defenses. Second, the rapid expansion of NATO in the past decade has in fact threatened Russia. And third, the Iranian missile “threat” to Europe has always been illusory.

The proposed U.S. missile defense shield in Eastern Europe has been a highly flawed concept from its very inception. Although it used unproven technology, it was sold as a means of protecting Europe from a threat that did not exist (Iranian missiles), while creating the conditions for exposing Europe to a real threat that the missile defense shield was incapable of defeating (Russian missiles). The fact that Obama would put the missile defense shield up for trade as part of a “Grand Bargain” with Russia on Iran only underscores how little value the system has to begin with. It is a big zero, both from a military and diplomacy perspective. Obama, in making it part of his bargain, was trying to give it value it lacked, and the Russians weren’t buying.

The Iranian situation is far too real, but not in terms of the dangers posed by anything Iran itself is doing. The United States has not helped matters by hyping the threat posed by nonexistent Iranian missiles targeting Europe and capable of carrying nonexistent nuclear warheads. Russia has expressed a desire to work with the United States to better control Iran’s program of uranium enrichment, which Iran and the nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), state has been clearly demonstrated as part of a peaceful nuclear energy program. For Russia to buy into Obama’s “deal,” it would have to buy into a threat from Iran’s missile and nuclear programs, a threat Russia does not believe to exist.

Obama would do well to call in his national security team and have it lay out the intelligence information used to assert the Iranian threat. There must be such a foundational document, since Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Adm. Michael Mullen and the president himself all have repeatedly referred to the “threat” posed by Iran’s “nuclear weapons” ambitions. It is important to distinguish between what we know and what we think we know. For instance, we know that Iran does not have any highly enriched uranium, the kind needed to produce a nuclear weapon. Just ask Adm. Dennis Blair, the director of national intelligence. This is what he told the U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee this week in testimony on Iran. And yet many in the U.S. intelligence community continue to state unequivocally that Iran is on the verge of possessing a nuclear weapon.

Obama should take each assertion put forward about Iran’s nuclear ambition and then reverse-engineer the underlying factual basis for making that assertion. If he did so, he would quickly find that he and his advisers know less about Iran than they think they do. The entire U.S. case against Iran is built on supposition and speculation. If the president disassembled the speculative assertions, he would find them cobbled together from an ideologically motivated methodology designed more to justify a policy of containing and undermining Iran’s theocracy than understanding its nuclear ambitions.

Obama ought to reacquaint himself with the 1972 ABM treaty and the case of the CIA versus “Team B.” This chapter of America’s failed arms control policy unfolded from 1975-1976, during the administration of Gerald Ford. Once upon a time, there was a Soviet Union, and a Cold War between the Soviet Union and the United States. In an effort to prevent the Cold War from becoming a “hot war,” the two powers launched arms control initiatives, packaged as part of a larger East-West détente, to better manage the escalation of an arms race derived from Cold War tensions. It was critical in this effort to have an accurate understanding of not only the physical reality of Soviet strategic weapons programs, but also their intent. The CIA produced a report that addressed these issues, National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) 11-3/8-74, “Soviet Forces for Intercontinental Conflict Through 1985.”

The benign picture painted by the CIA’s estimate of Soviet strategic capability clashed with ideologues in and out of government who were pushing for U.S. defense programs that could not be justified if the CIA’s estimates were allowed to stand. Rather than confront the facts of the CIA’s estimates, these ideologues instead assaulted the methodology used to determine them. Political pressure was brought to bear on President Ford by conservative opponents of détente to prepare a “Team B” of analysts (outside ideologues) who would challenge the conclusions put forward in the CIA estimate by “Team A” (the CIA’s own staff). “Team B” didn’t produce better facts (indeed, every one of its assertions was proved to be wrong), but it did produce better fear. Its claims about Soviet intentions and capabilities, highly inflated and inaccurate, were political dynamite that could not be ignored, especially in the politically charged presidential election year of 1976. “Team B” won out over “Team A,” and the foundation was set for not only the dismantling of U.S.-Soviet détente, but also for the biggest arms race in modern history, culminating in the destruction of the very agreements designed to constrain such an escalation.

Obama should acquaint himself with the story of “Team B,” because “Team B” exists today, propagating myths about an Iranian “threat” that are analogous to those employed by the team that sold the fable of the Soviet “threat.” The new president was critical of the Iraq war, and the sad tale of misinformation and deception that has since been repackaged as an “intelligence failure.” There was no “failure” because there was no “intelligence.” “Team B” doesn’t produce intelligence, but rather ideological assertions used as justification for policy. The same “Team B”-based methodologies which gave us the Iraq assertions about WMD programs are in play today in the Iran “intelligence” used by President Obama and his national security team.

Obama might be surprised that one of the programs being sold by “Team B” in its assault on truth was a missile defense shield to counter the team’s perception of a Soviet missile threat. The falsehoods and fabrications sold by “Team B” back in the 1970s set America on the path toward the withdrawal from the ABM treaty in 2001, and the proposed deployment of the very missile defense shield Obama is trying to bargain away to get Russia to help confront an Iranian “threat” manufactured by none other than “Team B.”

Secretary of State Clinton impressed many when she spoke of the need for America to embrace “smart power.” The implication of her words was that the United States, under President Obama, would use all the tools available, especially diplomacy, in seeking to solve the myriad problems it faces around the world in the post-Bush era, including the problem of Iran. But one cannot begin to solve a problem unless one first accurately defines the problem, for without that definition the “solution” would in fact solve nothing. Any solution to the problem of Iran must be derived from an accurate intelligence picture of what is transpiring inside the country today, one drawn more from fact than ideologically based fiction. Obama is advised to challenge the totality of the current U.S. intelligence used to define Iran as a threat, and purge once and for all the corrupting ideological “Team B” holdovers who still reside within the structure of the American intelligence community. Intelligence is never about hearing what you want to hear, but rather about learning what you need to know.

Obama needs to learn the truth about Iran, and about the proposed missile defense system in Europe. This truth would be inconvenient, but it would also liberate him to develop meaningful solutions to serious problems in a manner that avoids a repeat of his embarrassing “Grand Bargain” gambit with Russia, trying to trade nothing for nothing in an effort to certify something for nothing. There are a lot of “zero sums” in that equation, which pretty much sums up Obama’s Iran and Russia policies to date.

[Scott Ritter is a former intelligence and arms control official who served as an inspector in the former Soviet Union (1988-1990) and Iraq (1991-1998). He is the author of “Target Iran” (Nation Books, 2007) and the forthcoming “On Dangerous Ground: Following the Path of America’s Failed Arms Control Policy” (Nation Books).]

Source / TruthDig

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Melting Arctic Ice Creates International Drilling Free For All

Melting ice will open up much of the Arctic to undersea excavation of natural resources.

'The United States, Russia, Canada, Norway, Denmark, and other interested parties are all attempting to claim jurisdiction over the opening Arctic territory... Increasingly lost in the race for Arctic hydrocarbons are the concerns of environmentalists.'

By Bruce Pannier / January 29, 2009

Many see the problem of global warming and the melting polar ice caps as a looming ecological disaster.

Others, however, see it as an opportunity -- a chance to gain access to lucrative energy deposits long hidden under layers of Arctic ice.

NATO officials meeting in Reykjavik -- including Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer and John Craddock, the supreme allied commander in Europe -- say the race for the Arctic poses serious new security threats.

The United States, Russia, Canada, Norway, Denmark, and other interested parties are all attempting to claim jurisdiction over the opening Arctic territory. The Reykjavik meeting aims to discuss the possibility that disputes over shipping routes may turn into military conflicts.

Russia has already spent years jockeying for position.

Moscow asserts that it has the right to control an area equivalent to the size of France. As early as September 2008, President Dmitry Medvedev was calling for clear legislation on his country's activities in the Arctic.

"Our priority task is to turn the Arctic into Russia's resource base of the 21st century," Medvedev said. "In order to fulfill this task, we should first resolve a number of special issues. The main issue is to ensure and firmly defend Russia's national interests in that region."

Race For Undersea Resources

The Arctic has long been seen as a rich but inaccessible resource base. Energy experts estimate there may be as much as 25 percent of the world's oil and gas reserves lying beneath the Arctic seabed.

"The Arctic presents Russia with a range of interests, especially as an energy supplier. Even by preliminary estimates, the Arctic shelf is one of the biggest supplies [of energy resources] of oil and gas," says Dmitry Abzalov, an expert at the Center for Current Politics, a Moscow-based think tank.

Environmentalists worry about the effect of increased resource extraction."Besides that, we're talking about a number of other things. The Arctic is a vital military strategic area for the countries around the North Pole. Without a doubt, the development of this region is connected traditionally to the use of bioresources -- first and foremost the fishing industry," Abzalov tells RFE/RL's Russian Service. "But of course, there's no less interest in its hydrocarbon wealth."

Medvedev's call to adopt a federal law on delineating the southern border of Russia's Arctic zone last autumn drew sharp reactions from other countries with a claim on Arctic territory.

Canada responded by threatening to impose stricter registration requirements for ships sailing in the Northwest Passage, the sea route crossing over the northern coast of North America.

The United States, Norway, and others have argued that any attempt by Russia to draw up its own Arctic borders would have no basis in international law.

Such concerns haven't stopped Russia from demonstrating an aggressive interest in the region. Russian strategic bombers have made a series of test flights across the Arctic toward Canada and the United States; submarine expeditions have been conducted at Moscow's behest to lay claim to gas and oil fields below the ocean floor.

Such moves have only sparked concerns that the race for the Arctic may quickly escalate into a multilateral military confrontation.

Disputed Geography

Maritime law is part of the problem. The United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea says any littoral state can lay claim to territory within 200 nautical miles (370 kilometers) of its shoreline, and can develop any natural resources within that zone.

The law, however, also stipulates that that distance can expand to some 350 miles (648 kilometers) if the littoral state can provide scientific proof than an undersea continental plate is a natural extension of its territory.

Russia is now seeking to claim as its territory the Lomonosov Ridge -- an 1,800-kilometer-long section of the continental crust running from the New Siberian Islands to the Canadian Arctic islands.

Moscow says the Lomonosov Ridge is a natural extension of its continental plate, and has launched highly publicized expeditions to obtain the proof necessary to make a case before the United Nations that the territory is Russia's. (Canada and Denmark also claim the ridge is an extension of their territory.)

The UN has asked the Arctic states to submit their territorial claims for review by May 2009. But Abzalov of the Center for Current Politics says he does not believe the issue will create great difficulties between the five Arctic countries.

"Considering the battle for the Arctic started long ago, I wouldn't say that this would lead to any new confrontation," Abzalov says.

Increasingly lost in the race for Arctic hydrocarbons are the concerns of environmentalists. They worry that increased traffic and exploration in the Artic may do irreparable damage to the region's fragile biosphere.

[RFE/RL's Russian Service correspondents Irina Lagunina and Lubov Chizhova contributed to this report.]

Source / Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty

Thanks to truthout / The Rag Blog

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Mike Hanks Takes a Shot at the Missile Defense Question

Mike Hanks'remarks below on missile defense systems in eastern Europe will surely prove controversial with many of The Rag Blog's readers. Let the rumble begin. Please note the "comments" link at the end of the article.

'It is important to understand that the missiles proposed for deployment in Poland do not pose a threat.'
By William Michael Hanks / The Rag Blog / November 7, 2008

I hope I'll be forgiven for making presentments, assertions and forwarding opinions without the usual citing of precedent, quoting significant sources, and utilizing much in the way of irrefutable argument - it's late.

With that optimism, I'm forwarding the following thoughts in the way of being self-evident. I am prepared to sustain the hazards of such a course and, if pressed, to offer proof of whatever I may opine, but for now ...

We are approaching the first test of solidarity in the new administration. The challenges that President Obama will face upon assuming office will be, to state the obvious, almost overwhelming. One of the dynamics that will create unity (power) or disunity (weakness) is the expectations of his constituency. Let's look at a current issue.

One of the crises already being seen is in regard to the deployment of missile defense systems in Poland. The leadership in Russia has stated, in response to defensive systems, that offensive missile systems will be deployed which directly threaten Europe. Much of the progressive community has opposed the Missile Defense System known as "Star Wars". These thoughts are presented to open a dialog among those who may hold that position.

It is important to understand that the missiles proposed for deployment in Poland do not pose a threat. They don't even carry explosives. They are completely ballistic in the sense that they are designed to simply collide with an incoming missile and break it up prior to reaching its target.

Why would this pose such a risk to any one? Why would the Russian administration be so exercised over that? Are they concerned that one of these lumps of steel might drop on a little old lady crossing the street? No, it is because the threat posed by gigatons of nuclear weapons owned by Russia is rendered less harmful and therefore the coercive power of the Russian war machine is greatly reduced.

Most of the discussion I have heard in the past two days seems to assume that placing missiles in Poland threatens Russia in some way. As if those missiles could be used to destroy Russian cities or military installations. And then the old cold war mentality sets in which might suggest we should not deploy those missiles because it would be provocative - and we'd get what we deserved when Russia deploys their missiles.

That is not the case. The systems are not equivalent. The defensive missiles proposed for Poland make the world a safer place. If this system is widely deployed the threat of nuclear holocaust could be reduced to near zero. Why would that worry Russian leadership? Because if you have a gun to the world's head you don't want it putting on a bullet proof helmet. Rendering nuclear weapons useless is a good start in eliminating them.

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Another of the "Coalition of the Willing" Leaves

Kazakhstan Withdraws Troops from Iraq
By John C. K. Daly / October 24, 2008

The strategic seismic shockwave unleashed throughout the former Soviet Union by the August military confrontation between Georgia and Russia continues to reverberate throughout the Caucasus and Central Asia, as national leaders there reassess their relationships with Washington and Moscow. During the clash Azerbaijan, unable to use either the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline or its backup oil export routes through Georgia, shifted petroleum exports northward to Russia through the Baku-Novorossiysk line and initiated its first oil swap with Iran, both temporary solutions that Baku is now considering extending.

As the conflict has put an apparent chill on Caspian and Caucasian nations' interest in new pipelines ignoring the Kremlin's wishes, the momentum against embracing unilateral military relations with the U.S. also seems to be gathering pace. On October 22 Kazakhstan, the Caspian's other rising petro-state, provided Washington with a small but significant military gesture in the aftermath of the Caucasus clash by withdrawing its peacekeepers from Iraq. In a concurrent move largely unnoticed in the media, Georgia has also withdrawn its forces.

In its Iraq Weekly Status Report the U.S. Department of State briefly noted:

"Georgia and Kazakhstan held end-of-mission ceremonies at Forward Operating Base (FOB) Delta in Wasit province October 20, formally concluding their participation in Operation Iraqi Freedom. Both Georgia and Kazakh troops operated primarily from FOB Delta, conducting various missions including humanitarian assistance operations, explosive ordnance disposal, convoy security, perimeter and base defense, quick reaction force duties, and traffic control points operations" (Iraq Weekly Status Report, Unclassified, Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs, U.S. Department of State, October 22).

The Kazakh Ministry of Defense (MoD) press service was more forthcoming and posted an announcement about the withdrawal on its website in Russian but, interestingly enough, not in Kazakh or English (http://www.mod.kz/indexd0a5.html?post=9&id=1263(=rus)).

The MoD noted, "In five years Kazakhstan's peacekeeping contingent completely fulfilled its task and completed its mission in Iraq. At the request of the government of Iraq and in connection with the significant stabilization of the situation, Kazakh soldiers returned home."

The decision to withdraw the forces followed a three-day visit to Iraq, beginning on October 18 by a Kazakh Ministry of Defense delegation led by Deputy Defense Minister Lieutenant-General Bolat Sembinov. During the visit Sembinov met with General Raymond Odierno, Commanding General of Multi-National Force-Iraq (MNF-I), and with Iraqi National Security Adviser Mowaffaq al-Rubaie, Defense Minister Abdul Qader al-Obaidi, Interior Ministry military operations director Abdelaziz Mohammed Jasim, and Latif Hamad Alturfa, the governor of Iraq's southern Wasit Province, where the Kazakh troops were deployed.

Defense Minister Daniyal subsequently commented on the contingent's performance during a working visit to the Atyrau region, telling journalists:

"We withdrew our group from Iraq. Our soldiers did a very decent job, defusing more than 5 million mines and stocks of ammunition and shells. Kazakh doctors, together with their Iraqi colleagues and counterparts from other countries, provided medical assistance to more than 500 Iraqis. I am satisfied overall with the actions of our units in Iraq. Our troops gained experience working in difficult conditions. And most importantly, the military fulfilled a very important duty and assisted in restoring peace and stability in the country" (Nomad, October 22).

The symbolic value of the Kazakh presence in Iraq, which began in September 2003, far outweighed its actual numbers at any given time. Over five years nine contingents totaling 290 Kazakh peacekeeping troops were rotated through Iraq, most recently last May.

If the withdrawal of Kazakh troops from Iraq symbolizes Astana's changing bilateral military relationship with Washington in the twilight of the Bush administration, its larger military commitments to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization remain undiminished. While in Atyrau, Akhmetov reaffirmed Kazakhstan's intention to maintain its Partnership for Peace (PfP) relationship with NATO. In commenting on his recent visit to Brussels, Akhmetov said, "We received a positive assessment of the Republic of Kazakhstan's cooperation with this very important bloc. The partnership is particularly effective in such areas as peacekeeping and the security sector, for example, assistance on land and at sea" (Kazinform, October 23). Last month Kazakh, British, and U.S. troops held their annual "Steppe Eagle 2008" joint peacekeeping exercise near Almaty from September 15 to September 27, which was attended by the NATO Secretary General's Special Representative for the Caucasus and Central Asia, Ambassador Robert F. Simmons (www.nato.int/docu/update/2008/09-september/e0915e.html).

While the U.S. can hardly be happy about losing another member of the rapidly dwindling “coalition of the willing," it seems that Astana is merely deemphasizing unilateral military commitments to Washington and merging them with larger multilateral structures, such as NATO and the OSCE.

If the U.S. administration is perturbed about the political fallout from the Caucasian confrontation with its new-found Eurasian allies, Moscow is equally distressed. Russia has also drawn lessons from its confrontation with Georgia about the reliability of its relations with its Commonwealth of Independent States associates Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Tajikistan, Ukraine, and Uzbekistan and associate member Turkmenistan (Georgia, under Section 1, Article 9 of the CIS Charter served notice on August 18 of its intention to withdraw, which becomes effective on August 17, 2009).

On September 22 President of the Russian Academy of Military Sciences General Makhmut Akhmetovich Gareev commented bitterly about the tepid response of Russia's CIS colleagues to the Georgian crisis, remarking,

The entire West came out against us and CIS countries are vacillating to this day following Russia's decisive actions in South Ossetia and Abkhazia, and against this general background the old truth was clearly highlighted once again: under all circumstances only two allies, the Army and Navy, invariably remain for Russia at a difficult time (Krasnaia Zvezda, October 22).

Disappointment in partners aside, perhaps bellicose politicians in both Moscow and Washington might reflect upon the old Russian peasant proverb, "It's a broad road that leads to war, but a narrow path that leads home again." As both nations are finding out, their soldiers are walking that path increasingly alone.

Source / Eurasia Daily Monitor

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Noam Chomsky : Even the Cynical Shake Their Heads in Disbelief

Ossetia-Russia-Georgia
By Noam Chomsky / September 11, 2008

Aghast at the atrocities committed by US forces invading the Philippines, and the rhetorical flights about liberation and noble intent that routinely accompany crimes of state, Mark Twain threw up his hands at his inability to wield his formidable weapon of satire. The immediate object of his frustration was the renowned General Funston. “No satire of Funston could reach perfection,” Twain lamented, “because Funston occupies that summit himself... [he is] satire incarnated.”

It is a thought that often comes to mind, again in August 2008 during the Russia-Georgia-Ossetia war. George Bush, Condoleezza Rica and other dignitaries solemnly invoked the sanctity of the United Nations, warning that Russia could be excluded from international institutions “by taking actions in Georgia that are inconsistent with” their principles. The sovereignty and territorial integrity of all nations must be rigorously honored, they intoned – “all nations,” that is, apart from those that the US chooses to attack: Iraq, Serbia, perhaps Iran, and a list of others too long and familiar to mention.

The junior partner joined in as well. British foreign secretary David Miliband accused Russia of engaging in “19th century forms of diplomacy” by invading a sovereign state, something Britain would never contemplate today. That “is simply not the way that international relations can be run in the 21st century,” he added, echoing the decider-in-chief, who said that invasion of “a sovereign neighboring state…is unacceptable in the 21st century.” Mexico and Canada therefore need not fear further invasions and annexation of much of their territory, because the US now only invades states that are not on its borders, though no such constraint holds for its clients, as Lebanon learned once again in 2006.

“The moral of this story is even more enlightening,” Serge Halimi wrote in Le Monde diplomatique, “ when, to defend his country's borders, the charming pro-American Saakashvili repatriates some of the 2,000 soldiers he had sent to invade Iraq,” one of the largest contingents apart from the two warrior states.

Prominent analysts joined the chorus. Fareed Zakaria applauded Bush’s observation that Russia’s behavior is unacceptable today, unlike the 19th century, “when the Russian intervention would have been standard operating procedure for a great power.” We therefore must devise a strategy for bringing Russia “in line with the civilized world,” where intervention is unthinkable.

There were, to be sure, some who shared Mark Twain’s despair. One distinguished example is Chris Patten, former EU commissioner for external relations, chairman of the British Conservative Party, chancellor of Oxford University and a member of the House of Lords. He wrote that the Western reaction “is enough to make even the cynical shake their heads in disbelief” – referring to Europe’s failure to respond vigorously to the effrontery of Russian leaders, who, “like 19th-century tsars, want a sphere of influence around their borders.”

Patten rightly distinguishes Russia from the global superpower, which long ago passed the point where it demanded a sphere of influence around its borders, and demands a sphere of influence over the entire world. It also acts vigorously to enforce that demand, in accord with the Clinton doctrine that Washington has the right to use military force to defend vital interests such as “ensuring uninhibited access to key markets, energy supplies and strategic resources” – and in the real world, far more.

Clinton was breaking no new ground, of course. His doctrine derives from standard principles formulated by high-level planners during World War II, which offered the prospect of global dominance. In the postwar world, they determined, the US should aim “to hold unquestioned power” while ensuring the “limitation of any exercise of sovereignty” by states that might interfere with its global designs. To secure these ends, “the foremost requirement [is] the rapid fulfillment of a program of complete rearmament,” a core element of “an integrated policy to achieve military and economic supremacy for the United States.” The plans laid during the war were implemented in various ways in the years that followed.

The goals are deeply rooted in stable institutional structures. Hence they persist through changes in occupancy of the White House, and are untroubled by the opportunity for “peace dividends,” the disappearance of the major rival from the world scene, or other marginal irrelevancies. Devising new challenges is never beyond the reach of doctrinal managers, as when Ronald Reagan strapped on his cowboy boots and declared a national emergency because the Nicaraguan army was only two days from Harlingen Texas, and might lead the hordes who are about to “sweep over the United States and take what we have,” as Lyndon Johnson lamented when he called for holding the line in Vietnam. Most ominously, those holding the reins may actually believe their own words.

Returning to the efforts to elevate Russia to the civilized world, the seven charter members of the Group of Eight industrialized countries issued a statement “condemning the action of our fellow G8 member,” Russia, which has yet to comprehend the Anglo-American commitment to non-intervention. The European Union held a rare emergency meeting to condemn Russia’s crime, its first meeting since the invasion of Iraq, which elicited no condemnation.

Russia called for an emergency session of the Security Council, but no consensus was reached because, according to Council diplomats, the US, Britain, and some others rejected a phrase that called on both sides “to renounce the use of force.”

The typical reactions recall Orwell’s observations on the “indifference to reality” of the “nationalist,” who “not only does not disapprove of atrocities committed by his own side, but ... has a remarkable capacity for not even hearing about them.”

The basic facts are not seriously in dispute. South Ossetia, along with the much more significant region of Abkhazia, were assigned by Stalin to his native Georgia. Western leaders sternly admonish that Stalin’s directives must be respected, despite the strong opposition of Ossetians and Abkhazians. The provinces enjoyed relative autonomy until the collapse of the USSR. In 1990, Georgia’s ultranationalist president Zviad Gamsakhurdia abolished autonomous regions and invaded South Ossetia. The bitter war that followed left 1000 dead and tens of thousands of refugees, with the capital city of Tskhinvali “battered and depopulated” (New York Times).

A small Russian force then supervised an uneasy truce, broken decisively on 7 August 2008 when Georgian president Saakashvili’s ordered his forces to invade. According to “an extensive set of witnesses,” the Times reports, Georgia’s military at once “began pounding civilian sections of the city of Tskhinvali, as well as a Russian peacekeeping base there, with heavy barrages of rocket and artillery fire.” The predictable Russian response drove Georgian forces out of South Ossetia, and Russia went on to conquer parts of Georgia, then partially withdrawing to the vicinity of South Ossetia. There were many casualties and atrocities. As is normal, the innocent suffered severely.

Russia reported at first that ten Russian peacekeepers were killed by Georgian shelling. The West took little notice. That too is normal. There was, for example, no reaction when Aviation Week reported that 200 Russians were killed in an Israeli air raid in Lebanon in 1982 during a US-backed invasion that left some 15-20,000 dead, with no credible pretext beyond strengthening Israeli control over the occupied West Bank.

Among Ossetians who fled north, the “prevailing view,” according to the London Financial Times, “is that Georgia’s pro-western leader, Mikheil Saakashvili, tried to wipe out their breakaway enclave.” Ossetian militias, under Russian eyes, then brutally drove out Georgians, in areas beyond Ossetia as well. “Georgia said its attack had been necessary to stop a Russian attack that already had been under way,” the New York Times reports, but weeks later “there has been no independent evidence, beyond Georgia’s insistence that its version is true, that Russian forces were attacking before the Georgian barrages.”

In Russia, the Wall Street Journal reports, “legislators, officials and local analysts have embraced the theory that the Bush administration encouraged Georgia, its ally, to start the war in order to precipitate an international crisis that would play up the national-security experience of Sen. John McCain, the Republican presidential candidate.” In contrast, French author Bernard-Henri Levy, writing in the New Republic, proclaims that “no one can ignore the fact that President Saakashvili only decided to act when he no longer had a choice, and war had already come. In spite of this accumulation of facts that should have been blindingly obvious to all scrupulous, good-faith observers, many in the media rushed as one man toward the thesis of the Georgians as instigators, as irresponsible provocateurs of the war.”

The Russian propaganda system made the mistake of presenting evidence, which was easily refuted. Its Western counterparts, more wisely, keep to authoritative pronouncements, like Levy’s denunciation of the major Western media for ignoring what is “blindingly obvious to all scrupulous, good-faith observers” for whom loyalty to the state suffices to establish The Truth – which, perhaps, is even true, serious analysts might conclude.

The Russians are losing the “propaganda war,” BBC reported, as Washington and its allies have succeeded in “presenting the Russian actions as aggression and playing down the Georgian attack into South Ossetia on 7 August, which triggered the Russian operation,” though “the evidence from South Ossetia about that attack indicates that it was extensive and damaging.” Russia has “not yet learned how to play the media game,” the BBC observes. That is natural. Propaganda has typically become more sophisticated as countries become more free and the state loses the ability to control the population by force.

The Russian failure to provide credible evidence was partially overcome by the Financial Times, which discovered that the Pentagon had provided combat training to Georgian special forces commandos shortly before the Georgian attack on August 7, revelations that “could add fuel to accusations by Vladimir Putin, Russian prime minister, last month that the US had `orchestrated’ the war in the Georgian enclave.” The training was in part carried out by former US special forces recruited by private military contractors, including MPRI, which, as the journal notes, “was hired by the Pentagon in 1995 to train the Croatian military prior to their invasion of the ethnically-Serbian Krajina region, which led to the displacement of 200,000 refugees and was one of the worst incidents of ethnic cleansing in the Balkan wars.” The US-backed Krajina expulsion (generally estimated at 250,000, with many killed) was possibly the worst case of ethnic cleansing in Europe since World War II. Its fate in approved history is rather like that of photographs of Trotsky in Stalinist Russia, for simple and sufficient reasons: it does not accord with the required image of US nobility confronting Serbian evil.

The toll of the August 2008 Caucasus war is subject to varying estimates. A month afterwards, the Financial Times cited Russian reports that “at least 133 civilians died in the attack, as well as 59 of its own peacekeepers,” while in the ensuing Russian mass invasion and aerial bombardment of Georgia, according to the FT, 215 Georgians died, including 146 soldiers and 69 civilians. Further revelations are likely to follow.

In the background lie two crucial issues. One is control over pipelines to Azerbaijan and Central Asia. Georgia was chosen as a corridor by Clinton to bypass Russia and Iran, and was also heavily militarized for the purpose. Hence Georgia is “a very major and strategic asset to us,” Zbigniew Brzezinski observes.

It is noteworthy that analysts are becoming less reticent in explaining real US motives in the region as pretexts of dire threats and liberation fade and it becomes more difficult to deflect Iraqi demands for withdrawal of the occupying army. Thus the editors of the Washington Post admonished Barack Obama for regarding Afghanistan as “the central front” for the United States, reminding him that Iraq “lies at the geopolitical center of the Middle East and contains some of the world's largest oil reserves,” and Afghanistan’s “strategic importance pales beside that of Iraq.” A welcome, if belated, recognition of reality about the US invasion.

The second issue is expansion of NATO to the East, described by George Kennan in 1997 as “the most fateful error of American policy in the entire post-cold-war era, [which] may be expected to inflame the nationalistic, anti-Western and militaristic tendencies in Russian opinion; to have an adverse effect on the development of Russian democracy; to restore the atmosphere of the cold war to East-West relations.”

As the USSR collapsed, Mikhail Gorbachev made a concession that was astonishing in the light of recent history and strategic realities: he agreed to allow a united Germany to join a hostile military alliance. This “stunning concession” was hailed by Western media, NATO, and President Bush I, who called it a demonstration of “statesmanship ... in the best interests of all countries of Europe, including the Soviet Union.”

Gorbachev agreed to the stunning concession on the basis of “assurances that NATO would not extend its jurisdiction to the east, `not one inch’ in [Secretary of State] Jim Baker's exact words.” This reminder by Jack Matlock, the leading Soviet expert of the Foreign Service and US ambassador to Russia in the crucial years 1987 to 1991, is confirmed by Strobe Talbott, the highest official in charge of Eastern Europe in the Clinton administration. On the basis of a full review of the diplomatic record, Talbott reports that “Secretary of State Baker did say to then Soviet foreign minister Eduard Shevardnadze, in the context of the Soviet Union's reluctant willingness to let a unified Germany remain part of NATO, that NATO would not move to the east.”

Clinton quickly reneged on that commitment, also dismissing Gorbachev’s effort to end the Cold War with cooperation among partners. NATO also rejected a Russian proposal for a nuclear-weapons-free-zone from the Arctic to the Black Sea, which would have “interfered with plans to extend NATO,” strategic analyst and former NATO planner Michael MccGwire observes.

Rejecting these possibilities, the US took a triumphalist stand that threatened Russian security and also played a major role in driving Russia to severe economic and social collapse, with millions of deaths. The process was sharply escalated by Bush’s further expansion of NATO, dismantling of crucial disarmament agreements, and aggressive militarism. Matlock writes that Russia might have tolerated incorporation of former Russian satellites into NATO if it “had not bombed Serbia and continued expanding. But, in the final analysis, ABM missiles in Poland, and the drive for Georgia and Ukraine in NATO crossed absolute red lines. The insistence on recognizing Kosovo independence was sort of the very last straw. Putin had learned that concessions to the U.S. were not reciprocated, but used to promote U.S. dominance in the world. Once he had the strength to resist, he did so,” in Georgia.

Clinton officials argue that expansion of NATO posed no military threat, and was no more than a benign move to allow former Russian satellites to join the EU (Talbott). That is hardly persuasive. Austria, Sweden and Finland are in the EU but not NATO. If the Warsaw Pact had survived and was incorporating Latin American countries – let alone Canada and Mexico – the US would not easily be persuaded that the Pact is just a Quaker meeting. There should be no need to review the record of US violence to block mostly fanciful ties to Moscow in “our little region over here,” the Western hemisphere, to quote Secretary of War Henry Stimson when he explained that all regional systems must be dismantled after World II, apart from our own, which are to be extended.

To underscore the conclusion, in the midst of the current crisis in the Caucasus, Washington professes concern that Russia might resume military and intelligence cooperation with Cuba at a level not remotely approaching US-Georgia relations, and not a further step towards a significant security threat.

Missile defense too is presented here as benign, though leading US strategic analysts have explained why Russian planners must regard the systems and their chosen location as the basis for a potential threat to the Russian deterrent, hence in effect a first-strike weapon. The Russian invasion of Georgia was used as a pretext to conclude the agreement to place these systems in Poland, thus “bolstering an argument made repeatedly by Moscow and rejected by Washington: that the true target of the system is Russia,” AP commentator Desmond Butler observed.

Matlock is not alone in regarding Kosovo as an important factor. “Recognition of South Ossetia's and Abkhazia's independence was justified on the principle of a mistreated minority's right to secession - the principle Bush had established for Kosovo,” the Boston Globe editors comment.

But there are crucial differences. Strobe Talbott recognizes that “there's a degree of payback for what the U.S. and NATO did in Kosovo nine years ago,” but insists that the “analogy is utterly and profoundly false.” No one is a better position to know why it is profoundly false, and he has lucidly explained the reasons, in his preface to a book on NATO’s bombing of Serbia by his associate John Norris. Talbott writes that those who want to know “how events looked and felt at the time to those of us who were involved” in the war should turn to Norris’s well-informed account. Norris concludes that “it was Yugoslavia’s resistance to the broader trends of political and economic reform – not the plight of Kosovar Albanians – that best explains NATO’s war.”

That the motive for the NATO bombing could not have been “the plight of Kosovar Albanians” was already clear from the rich Western documentary record revealing that the atrocities were, overwhelmingly, the anticipated consequence of the bombing, not its cause. But even before the record was released, it should have been evident to all but the most fervent loyalists that humanitarian concern could hardly have motivated the US and Britain, which at the same time were lending decisive support to atrocities well beyond what was reported from Kosovo, with a background far more horrendous than anything that had happened in the Balkans. But these are mere facts, hence of no moment to Orwell’s “nationalists” – in this case, most of the Western intellectual community, who had made an enormous investment in self-aggrandizement and prevarication about the “noble phase” of US foreign policy and its “saintly glow” as the millennium approached its end, with the bombing of Serbia as the jewel in the crown.

Nevertheless, it is interesting to hear from the highest level that the real reason for the bombing was that Serbia was a lone holdout in Europe to the political and economic programs of the Clinton administration and its allies, though it will be a long time before such annoyances are allowed to enter the canon.

There are of course other differences between Kosovo and the regions of Georgia that call for independence or union with Russia. Thus Russia is not known to have a huge military base there named after a hero of the invasion of Afghanistan, comparable to Camp Bondsteel in Kosovo, named after a Vietnam war hero and presumably part of the vast US basing system aimed at the Middle East energy-producing regions. And there are many other differences.

There is much talk about a “new cold war” instigated by brutal Russian behavior in Georgia. One cannot fail to be alarmed by signs of confrontation, among them new US naval contingents in the Black Sea – the counterpart would hardly be tolerated in the Caribbean. Efforts to expand NATO to Ukraine, now contemplated, could become extremely hazardous.

Nonetheless, a new cold war seems unlikely. To evaluate the prospect, we should begin with clarity about the old cold war. Fevered rhetoric aside, in practice the cold war was a tacit compact in which each of the contestants was largely free to resort to violence and subversion to control its own domains: for Russia, its Eastern neighbors; for the global superpower, most of the world. Human society need not endure – and might not survive – a resurrection of anything like that.

A sensible alternative is the Gorbachev vision rejected by Clinton and undermined by Bush. Sane advice along these lines has recently been given by former Israeli Foreign Minister and historian Shlomo ben-Ami, writing in the Beirut Daily Star: “Russia must seek genuine strategic partnership with the US, and the latter must understand that, when excluded and despised, Russia can be a major global spoiler. Ignored and humiliated by the US since the Cold War ended, Russia needs integration into a new global order that respects its interests as a resurgent power, not an anti-Western strategy of confrontation.”

Noam Chomsky is professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Source / Information Clearing House

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UN Ambassador Wolff: Just Making Sure We All Understood the Hypocrisy

Alejandro Wolff, trained all-American hypocrite
Russia and U.S trade barbs over Iraq
By Louis Charbonneau / August 28, 2008

UNITED NATIONS -- U.S. and Russian envoys exchanged sharp words on Thursday over Iraq and Kosovo at a U.N. Security Council meeting on Georgia, at which Russia found little support for its actions in the Caucasus.

It was the council's sixth emergency session on the crisis in the former Soviet republic, which Russia invaded earlier this month to thwart an attempt by Tbilisi to restore its control over a breakaway region.

Like the five previous council meetings on the brief war this month between Russia and Georgia, the 15-nation body passed no resolution or statement due to Russia's veto powers.

The meeting was characterized by Cold War-style exchanges of insults between the U.S. and Russian U.N. ambassadors that reflected the growing tensions between the two countries.

U.S. Deputy Ambassador Alejandro Wolff told the meeting it was a violation of the U.N. charter for member states to use force against others, or threaten to use it, and suggested that Moscow's claims to be protecting Russian citizens in Georgia's South Ossetia region were a sham.

Russia's U.N. envoy, Vitaly Churkin, suggested Wolff's statement was hypocritical and referred to the U.S.-led March 2003 invasion of Iraq, which Moscow strongly opposed.

"I would like to ask the distinguished representative of the United States -- weapons of mass destruction. Have you found them yet in Iraq or are you still looking for them?"

The United States justified the invasion of Iraq by saying it had to find and secure what it said were caches of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons hidden by then-President Saddam Hussein. The weapons were never found.

Wolff accused Churkin of making false comparisons. "I'm not a psychologist and I don't know what brought on the free association we heard from Ambassador Churkin," he said.

"There were divisions on the Iraq war," he said. "Those are well known. We thought we had overcome them. Apparently there are still some lingering frustrations. But there is no territorial ambition or desire to dismember Iraq."

'JUST LIKE KOSOVO'

Churkin also cited NATO's 1999 bombing campaign against Serbia to force it to withdraw from its Kosovo region. He likened the declaration of independence by South Ossetia and another Georgian separatist enclave, Abkhazia, to Kosovo's Western-backed secession from Serbia in February 2008.

British Ambassador John Sawers rejected the comparison, saying, "I'm afraid this assertion, Ambassador Churkin, simply does not stand up to scrutiny."

Sawers said NATO's 1999 military intervention in Kosovo was multilateral, was intended to prevent an impending humanitarian crisis and took place after all peaceful avenues had been exhausted. He added that Kosovo's declaration of independence followed nine years of U.N. administration.

The Security Council has so far refused to accept a request from envoys of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, which Russia recognized this week as independent states, to address it.

Only South African Ambassador Dumisani Kumalo supported Russia on the issue of inviting the separatist envoys, who have applied for U.S. visas in Moscow using Russian passports, to speak before the council.

The Chinese delegation, Russia's traditional ally on the council, did not speak, which Western diplomats said was a defeat for Russia and proved that Moscow enjoyed virtually no support on the council.

Source / Yahoo News

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