Month: May 2009

by Carol Eisenberg

Harriet Miers, former White House counsel and unsuccessful U.S.
Supreme Court nominee, has returned to her old law firm, but with a new portfoliio – as a registered agent for the Pakistan People’s Party and the Embassy of Pakistan.

Working for the public affairs arm of Locke Lord Bissell & Liddell LLP, Miers filed papers to represent both Pakistani entities with the U.S. Justice Department, according to Legal Times’ blog.

“On her foreign agent registration short form for Locke Lord Strategies, a subsidiary of Locke Lord Bissell & Liddell, the former Supreme Court nominee cites her work as part and parcel of Locke Lord’s effort to ‘promote better understanding of the country’s recent political, social, and economic developments’ and line up state visits to Washington,” the blog reported.

The firm’s relationship to Pakistani leaders long pre-dates her involvement, however.

One partner of Locke Lord Strategies, Mark A. Siegel, was a decades-long adviser and close friend to Pakistani leader Benazir Bhutto, who was slain in December. She died two months before the publication of a book on which they had collaborated, Reconciliation: Islam, Democracy and the West.

Despite her death, Bhutto’s party won a large number of seats in Pakistan’s National Parliament, and formed a coalition government with the Pakistan Muslim League (N). A short time later, the Embassy of Pakistan signed a $900,000 contract with Siegel, according to Roll Call. The firm is believed to represent the political party pro bono.

Siegel, for his part, has longstanding ties to the Democratic Party, serving in the administration of former President Jimmy Carter, as the executive director of the Democratic National Committee and as former chief of staff to Democrat Steve Israel, a Long Island congressman.

Other clients of Locke Lord Strategies include the American Veal Association, the Louisiana Sheriff’s Association and the Dallas Police and Fire Pension System.

See the web of connections of the companies and people involved.
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(Submitted by reader)

By: Voranai Vanijaka

Last Monday, I read a report on an etiquette course for novice monks. Introduced by leading preacher and writer Phra Wor Wachiramethi, the course aims to “prevent gay expressions” among monks.

The course is deemed necessary, as there have been too many news reports of homosexual monks using cosmetics, carrying pink bags and wearing their robes in a stylish, fashionable way in public.

Not to mention, monks actually having sexual relations with men in their monasteries. Gasp!

The course will be taught at the Triam Sammanen School – the country’s first Buddhist missionary school, located in the compound of Wat Krueng Tai in Chiang Rai’s Chiang Khong district.

After falling off the chair, rolling on the ground gripped by hysterical laughter for about five minutes (who doesn’t appreciate a good laugh on a Monday morning, eh?), I forgot about the story.

On Thursday night, I attended a concert/fashion show by Elle magazine, which is also owned by Post Publishing. (Who said this company is all stuffy, old and conservative, eh?) Needless to say, there were no shortages of “gay expressions” at the party. Though these expressions, it seemed to me, were that of fun and happiness, enjoyment, a zest for life.

Of course we must differentiate between “gay expressions” among laymen and among monks. The former is a matter of human rights, guaranteed by democratic principles. The latter however, hasn’t anything to do with human rights or democracy.

The core principle of Buddhism is cessation of desire. Using cosmetics and carrying pink bags are fulfillments of desire, rather than cessations. Hence, it is wrong according to Buddhist principles.

I am proudly a slave of many desires. I cannot have an Italian dinner without red wine. I screamed profanity when Manchester United scored five goals in 30 minutes to beat Tottenham Hotspur.

And like most men, if I were to pick up Elle, it’s not necessarily to read the excellent articles, but to look at delicious models. Hence, I don’t pretend to be a monk – and neither should those men who shaved their heads and wear yellow robes.

I have no idea what could cure homosexual monks of “gay expressions”. Will they chant and pray, burn incense until the gayness goes away? I don’t know, but I’m sure the venerable monks will try their best.

If the venerable monks were to ask me for a solution, which of course they never would, but I have to write a Sunday column and the epic struggles of Thaksin Shinawatra is rather dry and stale this week, so let’s pretend that I was asked.
If they were to ask me, I would say the solution is simple: Can’t extinguish the burning flame of desire? Defrock them. They don’t deserve to be monks.

But you see, such solution would never be accepted, because it will open a big can of worms. If we start to defrock monks because they don’t follow the principles of Buddhism and are enslaved by desires, then many temples will be emptier than the bottle of whiskey on my table at the end of the Elle party.
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HOW many viewers, we wonder, tuned in to Tazzen Mandizvidza’s mind-numbing birthday interview with President Mugabe. It was journalism at its worst.
Mandizvidza failed to ask a single challenging question and instead asked Mugabe everything a politician in the spotlight would be delighted to answer.
One example will suffice: “The economic meltdown in the West shows ‘Looking East’ was the right policy in the first place.”

Not so much a question, more a grovelling statement. And the interview must have broken the record for how many times it is possible to say “Your Excellency” in one programme!

There was nothing on multiple farm ownership or why Iron Mask Farm is proving insufficient for its owner’s needs.

And the list of estates Mugabe rattled off as belonging to British interests must have been drawn up 30 years ago. Indeed, throughout the interview there appeared to be a certain cognitive dissonance as if the president was visiting from another planet. The claim that “we brought democracy here” (not the British) will have elicited a sceptical murmur of doubt from those who recall the State of Emergency that Mugabe kept in place until 1990.
…
More than 700 passengers escaped unhurt when a Bulawayo-bound train collided with a herd of elephants, the Herald reported last Friday.
“Grateful passengers hailed the train driver as a hero after he calmly steered the locomotive, averting disaster.”
May we ask why our NRZ “hero” didn’t notice the herd of elephants on the line? The incident took place in broad daylight so they would have been clearly visible.
The train driver was “hailed” for “remaining calm” and “steering” the train to safety.
Did he have a choice? Were there other routes the train could have taken?
As it was, three elephants including a baby were killed because the train driver didn’t see them. A hero indeed.
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By Tom Baldwin

The Obama Administration has signalled a tougher approach towards Israel ahead of fresh talks on the Middle East peace process by insisting it must endorse the creation of an independent Palestinian state.

“Israel has to work toward a two-state solution,” declared Vice-President Joe Biden today in a speech to the annual conference of a powerful pro-Israel lobby group in Washington.
“You’re not going to like my saying this,” he warned the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (Aipac) before adding that the Jewish state should not build any more settlements on Palestinian territory, and should “dismantle existing outposts and allow Palestinians freedom of movement”.

President Obama later held a White House meeting with Shimon Peres, his Israeli counterpart, who holds a largely ceremonial position. But the US Administration’s message appeared to be addressed to the new right-wing Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, who is due to visit the White House on May 18.

Mr Netanyahu has dismayed American, Arab and European officials by pointedly refusing to back Palestinian statehood since taking office on March 31. In his own speech to Aipac, sent via satellite link, he said: “We are prepared to resume peace negotiations without any delay and without any preconditions — the sooner the better.” Saeb Erekat, the senior Palestinian negotiator, however, criticised Mr Netanyahu’s speech for its “vagueness” on core issues such as the status of Jerusalem and refugees, as well as its failure to commit to a two-state solution.

Aipac has demonstrated that it — and Israel — still exercise considerable muscle in Washington by persuading the US Justice Department last week to abandon the prosecution of two former employees on charges that they spied on America for Israel.
Aipac’s 6,000 delegates are being urged to bombard Capitol Hill with demands that Congress support ever more draconian sanctions against Iran whose Government has threatened to wipe Israel off the face of the map.

Mr Biden used his speech to reiterate that the US would never abandon its commitment to Israel’s security and that “nothing is off the table” with Iran — a phrase often used to imply that military action against uranium enrichment facilities remains possible.
He added that Israel had the right “to make its own judgment about what it needs to do to defend itself”, which many members of the audience saw as a hint that the US might allow it to deliver an airstrike against Iran’s nuclear sites.

Read more
(Submitted by a reader)

CAIRO, May 3 (Reuters) – Egyptian police fired tear gas on Sunday at garbage collectors who pelted them with rocks and bottles over fears they had come to seize their pigs as a precaution against a new flu virus.

At least 10 people were injured in the clashes in Manshiet Nasr, a shantytown on Cairo’s outskirts where residents burned trash barriers in the street to keep police at bay. Security sources said up to 15 people were detained.

Three police were also injured in clashes with pig farmers in another area of the capital.

Egypt, already hit hard by bird flu, ordered the slaughter of all Egypt’s roughly 300,000 to 400,000 pigs on April 29 as a precaution against the H1N1 swine flu virus, a move the United Nations said was “a real mistake”.

Egypt, which has not reported any H1N1 cases, fears another flu virus could spread quickly in a country where most of the roughly 80 million population live in the densely packed Nile Valley, many in crowded slums around Cairo.

One security source said police had gone to the Manshiet Nasr neighbourhood, a mix of concrete and brick apartment blocks and makeshift shanties, to seize pigs belonging to garbage collectors who make their living sorting trash.

But another security source said police were simply surrounding the neighbourhood to prevent residents from moving their animals outside the neighbourhood to hide them from officials seeking to enforce a cull.

“We serve the people and they come and cut off our livelihood. The pigs don’t have any disease. The country is diseased. Take samples from the pigs and if they have disease, we would cull them,” Manshiet Nasr resident Marzouk Badr Adli said after the clashes, complaining about the cull.

The new virus strain — a mix of swine, avian and human viruses — is being spread by people, not pigs. But culling swine, largely viewed as unclean in Muslim Egypt, could help quell any public panic in the most populous Arab country.

Pigs are mainly raised by the Christian minority, and government officials have complained that some farmers are trying to hide their pigs, making it harder for officials to carry out the cull.

The World Health Organisation has identified 787 H1N1 infections in 17 countries, including in Egypt’s neighbour Israel, and said there were 19 confirmed deaths in Mexico. (Writing by Cynthia Johnston; Editing by Richard Balmforth)

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“The Govt of Egypt couldnt wait to exterminate the pigs even though there was no case of swine flu in Egypt just to open their path to paradise & to raise their pietic worth among Egyptian masses.

”Forgot a tiny little inconvenient fact in their pious zeal that pigs help clean up the garbage in Cairo in the absence of govt reponsibility and competence in providing basic services.

”Enjoy the tamasha [spectacle]!”

(The above comments and article submitted by a reader)

World Science staff
Fossil evidence suggests that early, anatomically “modern” humans may have split into many isolated populations before leaving Africa in a series of migrations, scientists report.

Scientists generally believe humans evolved in Africa and from there spread out to other regions, starting over 60,000 years ago.

In new research, Gerhard Weber of the University of Vienna and colleagues used geometric patterns of fossilized skulls found in various parts of Africa to compare the diversity among early representatives of the genus Homo, the evolutionary group to which humans belong.

The researchers concluded that, rather than a single out-of-Africa dispersal, their evidence shows early modern humans in Africa were divided into different populations by the Pleistocene, the era from about two million to 11,000 years ago.

Skulls from early modern humans showed the greatest variation in shape over the last 1.8 million years, indicating that early modern humans had split into multiple, temporarily isolated populations, the researchers explained.

After that breakup there seems to have followed a complex migration pattern in which different populations left the continent left at different times, they added. They report that the skull shapes of early modern humans most closely resembled those found in later humans outside of Africa, providing a link between some isolated African populations with later migration.

Understanding the diversity of anatomically modern humans in Africa before the migrations is crucial to any analysis of modern human origins, the researchers wrote in a paper detailing their findings. “The African continent deserves more attention in the modern human origins debate,” they added in the paper, to appear in this week’s early online edition of the research journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

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KARACHI – Madadgaar Helpline for Children & Women victims of violence and abuse is counselling the women through legal aid, referral and protection services to children and women victims of sexual abuse including rape, physical abuse, corporal punishment, human trafficking, kidnapping and honour killing. Madadgaar Helpline works as a first point of contact assisting survivors in pre, during and post crisis situations.

Zia Ahmed Awan, president for Human Rights and Legal Aid, elaborated the unique nature of Madadgaar Helpline. He said that lack of coordination among civil society organisations and government departments made it difficult for the needy children and women to receive immediate help. He informed that Madadgaar has developed a network of above 400 service providers to give relief to the victims of violence, notably children and women. “Since 2001 to 2009, more then 16,417 persons and 6,381 walk-in clients contacted Madadgaar Helpline,” he added. Awan said that violence against children and women had been practiced all over the country. He said that according to Madadgaar database research during from January 2000 to April 2009, total 48,521 children were victimised across Pakistan. 5,938 children were brutally murdered, 2,994 cases of rape with minor girls, 2,527 cases of sodomy with minor boys, 3,205 cases of psychical torture, 1,163 cases of internal or international trafficking, 9,440 cases of missing children, 3,317 cases of suicide, 950 cases of police torture, 444 cases of karokari, 8,728 cases of kidnapping, 9,030 cases of forced marriage and 785 cases of vani. Punjab tops the list of violence cases with 29,026 cases, Sindh with 16,376 cases, NWFP with 2,419 cases and in Balochistan with 700.

Awan further explained about women abuse cases and said that during the same period Madadgaar recorded 69,326 cases of women abuse across Pakistan, 12,645 cases were murder, 419 cases of rape murder, 4,514 cases of rape, 2,005 cases of gang rape, 14,452 cases of physical torture, 6,901 cases of karokari, 2,119 cases of burn, 11,782 cases of kidnapping, 1,359 police torture, 98,60 suicide, 860 Hudood cases, 864 women trafficking, 601 cases of forced marriage and 945 cases of vani.

According to province breakdown, 2,526 cases were recorded in Balochistan, 5,943 in NWFP, 43,001 in Punjab and 17,856 in Sindh …

Nation

(Submitted by Abdul Hamid Bashani Khan)

By William Blum

Killing Hope

Some thoughts about torture. And Mr. Obama.

Okay, at least some things are settled. When George W. Bush said “The United States does not torture,” everyone now knows it was crapaganda. And when Barack Obama, a month into his presidency, said “The United States does not torture,” <1> it likewise had all the credibility of a 19th century treaty between the US government and the American Indians.

When Obama and his followers say, as they do repeatedly, that he has “banned torture,” this is a statement they have no right to make. The executive orders concerning torture leave loopholes, such as being applicable only “in any armed conflict.” <2> What about in a “counter-terrorism” environment? And the new administration has not categorically banned the outsourcing of torture, such as renditions, the sole purpose of which is to kidnap people and send them to a country to be tortured. Moreover, what do we know of all the CIA secret prisons, the gulag extending from Poland to the island of Diego Garcia? How many of them are still open and abusing and torturing prisoners, keeping them in total isolation and in indefinite detention? Total isolation by itself is torture; not knowing when, if ever, you will be released is torture. And the non-secret prisons? Has Guantanamo ended all its forms of torture? There’s reason to doubt that. <3> And what do we know of what’s happening now in Abu Ghraib and Bagram?

And when Obama says “I don’t believe that anybody is above the law”, and then acts in precisely the opposite fashion, despite overwhelming evidence of criminal torture — such as the recently leaked report of the International Committee of the Red Cross and the Bush Justice Department “torture memos” — it’s enough to break the heart of any of his fans who possess more than a minimum of intellect and conscience. It should be noted that a Gallup Poll of April 24/25 showed that 66% of Democrats favored an “investigation into harsh interrogation techniques on terrorism suspects”. If the word “torture” had been used in the question, the figure would undoubtedly have been higher.

Following the US invasion of Iraq in March 2003, President Bush went on TV to warn the people of Iraq: “War crimes will be prosecuted. War criminals will be punished. And it will be no defense to say, I was just following orders.” <4>

“Objectively, the American public is much more responsible for the crimes committed in its name than were the people of Germany for the horrors of the Third Reich. We have far more knowledge, and far greater freedom and opportunity to stop our government’s criminal behavior,” observed James Brooks in the Online Journal in 2007.

On February 10, the Obama Justice Department used the Bush administration’s much-reviled “state secrets” tactic in a move to have a lawsuit dismissed — filed by five detainees against a subsidiary of Boeing aircraft company for arranging rendition flights which led to their torture. “It was as if last month’s inauguration had never occurred,” observed the New York Times. <5>

And when Obama says, as he does repeatedly, “We need to look forward as opposed to looking backwards,” why is it that no one in the media asks him what he thinks of the Nuremberg Tribunal looking backwards in 1946? Or the Church Committee of the US Senate doing the same in 1975 and producing numerous revelations about the criminality of the CIA, FBI, and other government agencies that shocked and opened the eyes of the American people and the world?
We’re now told that Obama and his advisers had recently been fiercely debating the question of what to do about the Bush war criminals, with Obama going one way and then another and then back again, both in private and in his public stands. One might say that he was “tortured.” But civilized societies do not debate torture. Why didn’t the president just do the obvious? The simplest? The right thing? Or at least do what he really believes.

The problem, I’m increasingly afraid, is that the man doesn’t really believe strongly in anything, certainly not in controversial areas. He learned a long time ago how to take positions that avoid controversy, how to express opinions without clearly and firmly taking sides, how to talk eloquently without actually saying anything, how to leave his listeners’ heads filled with stirring clichés, platitudes, and slogans. And it worked. Oh how it worked! What could happen now, as President of the United States, to induce him to change his style?

The president and the Director of the CIA both insist that no one at the CIA who was relying on the Justice Department’s written legal justification of methods of “enhanced interrogation” should be punished. But the first such approval was dated August 1, 2002, while many young men were arrested in Afghanistan and Pakistan during the previous nine months and subjected to “enhanced interrogation.”

Many were sent to Guantanamo as early as January 2002. And many others were kidnaped and sent to Egypt, Jordan, Morocco and other secret prisons to be tortured beginning in late 2001. So, at least for some months, the torturers were not acting under any formal approval of their methods. But they still will not be punished.

I love that expression “enhanced interrogation”. How did our glorious leaders overlook calling the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki “enhanced explosive devices”?

Lord High Dungeon Master Richard Cheney is upset about the recent release of torture memos. He keeps saying that the Obama administration is suppressing documents that show a more positive picture of the effectiveness of interrogation techniques, which he claims produced very valuable information, prevented certain acts of terrorism, and saved American lives. Hmmm, why am I skeptical of this? Oh, I know, because if this is what actually happened and there are documents which genuinely and unambiguously showed such results, the beleaguered Bush administration would have leaked them years ago with great fanfare, and the CIA would not have destroyed numerous videos of the torture sessions.

But in any event, that still wouldn’t justify torture. Humankind has aspired for centuries to tame its worst behaviors; ridding itself of the affliction of torture has been high on that list. There is more than one United States law now prohibiting torture, including a 1994 law making it a crime for US citizens to commit torture overseas. This was recently invoked to convict the son of former Liberian dictator Charles Taylor. There is also the Geneva Convention Relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War, ratified in 1949, which states in Article 17:
No physical or mental torture, nor any other form of coercion may be inflicted on prisoners of war to secure from them information of any kind whatever. Prisoners of war who refuse to answer may not be threatened, insulted, or exposed to any unpleasant or disadvantageous treatment of any kind.

Thus it was that the United States has not called the prisoners of its War on Terror “prisoners of war.” But in 1984, another historic step was taken, by the United Nations, with the drafting of the “Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment” (came into force in 1987, ratified by the United States in 1994). Article 2, section 2 of the Convention states:
No exceptional circumstances whatsoever, whether a state of war or a threat of war, internal political instability or any other public emergency, may be invoked as a justification of torture.

Such marvelously clear, unequivocal, and principled language, to set a single standard for a world that makes it increasingly difficult for one to feel proud of humanity. We cannot slide back. If today it’s deemed acceptable to torture the person who supposedly has the vital “ticking-bomb” information needed to save lives, tomorrow it will be acceptable to torture him to learn the identities of his alleged co-conspirators. Would we allow slavery to resume for just a short while to serve some “national emergency” or some other “higher purpose”?

If you open the window of torture, even just a crack, the cold air of the Dark Ages will fill the whole room.

“I would personally rather die than have anyone tortured to save my life.” – Craig Murray, former British Ambassador to Uzbekistan, who lost his job after he publicly condemned the Uzbek regime in 2003 for its systematic use of torture. <6>

With all the reports concerning torture under the recent Bush administration, some people may be inclined to think that prior to Bush the United States had very little connection to this awful practice. However, in the period of the 1950s through the 1980s, while the CIA did not usually push the button, turn the switch, or pour the water, the Agency …
• encouraged its clients in the Third World to use torture;
• provided the host country the names of the people who wound up as torture victims, in places as bad as Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib and Bagram;
• supplied torture equipment;
• conducted classes in torture;
• distributed torture manuals — how-to books;
• was present when torture was taking place, to observe and evaluate how well its students were doing. <7>

I could really feel sorry for Barack Obama — for his administration is plagued and handicapped by a major recession not of his making — if he had a vision that was thus being thwarted. But he has no vision — not any kind of systemic remaking of the economy, producing a more equitable and more honest society; nor a world at peace, beginning with ending America’s perennial wars; no vision of the fantastic things that could be done with the trillions of dollars that would be saved by putting an end to war without end; nor a vision of a world totally rid of torture; nor an America with national health insurance; nor an environment free of capitalist subversion; nor a campaign to control world population … he just looks for what will offend the fewest people. He’s a “whatever works” kind of guy. And he wants to be president. But what we need and crave is a leader of vision.

Another jewel in the crown, Miss Hillary

During the presidential campaign much was made of Obama’s stated promises to engage in direct talks with Iran, as opposed to the Bush administration’s refusal to speak to the Iranians and threatening to attack them and bomb their nuclear facilities. This was one more example of the much-vaunted “change” that Obama was going to bring. But, in actuality, it wouldn’t be much of a change. Mid-level American officials did in fact occasionally meet with Iranian officials, most notably after the September 11 attacks in 2001 and in mid-2003 after the US invasion of Iraq. These meetings were always in secret. <8> There were also at least three publicly-announced meetings between the US and Iran in 2007, primarily dealing with the fighting in Iraq. And now that Obama is in power, what do we find? We find his Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, testifying April 22 before the House Foreign Affairs Committee and stating:
“We actually believe that by following the diplomatic path we are on [speaking to Iran], we gain credibility and influence with a number of nations who would have to participate in order to make the sanctions regime as tight and as crippling as we would want it to be.”

Would it be unfair to say that she’s implying that a reason for talks with Iran is that the US could get more international support when it decides to cripple that country? Is crippling a country the United States is at peace with supposed to be part of the “change” in US foreign policy? Is Iran expected to be enthusiastic about such talks? If the talks collapse, will the United States use that as an excuse for bombing Iran? Or will Israel be given the honor?

Later in the hearing, Clinton declared: “We are deploying new approaches to the threat posed by Iran.”

I would love to have been a member of the House committee so I could have had the following exchange with the Secretary of State:
Cong. Blum: Do we plan to impose sanctions on France?
Sec. Clinton: I don’t understand, Congressman. Why would we impose sanctions on France?
Cong. Blum: Well, if we impose sanctions on Iran on the mere suspicion of them planning to build nuclear weapons, it seems to me we’d want to impose even stricter sanctions on a country which already possesses such weapons.
Sec. Clinton: But France is an ally.
Cong. Blum: So let’s make Iran an ally. We can start with ending our many sanctions against them and calling off our Israeli attack dogs.
Sec. Clinton: But Congressman, Iran is a threat. Surely you don’t see France as a threat? What reason would France have to use nuclear weapons against the United States?
Cong. Blum: What reason would Iran have to use nuclear weapons against the United States? Other than an irresistible desire for mass national suicide.

If Congressman Blum had pursued this line of questioning, it might well have culminated in some Orwellian remark by dear Hillary, such as the one she treated us to a few days later when speaking to reporters in Iraq. As the Washington Post reported it: “Clinton played down the latest burst of violence, telling reporters she saw ‘no sign’ it would reignite the sectarian warfare that ravaged the country in recent years. She said that the Iraqi government had ‘come a long, long way’ and that the bombings were ‘a signal that the rejectionists fear Iraq is going in the right direction.'” <9>

So … the eruption of violence is a sign of success. In October 2003, President George W. Bush, speaking after many resistance attacks in Iraq had occurred, said: “The more successful we are on the ground, the more these killers will react.” <10>

And here is Gen. Richard B. Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, speaking in April 2004 about a rise in insurrection and fighting in Iraq over nearly a two-week period: “‘I would characterize what we’re seeing right now as a — as more a symptom of the success that we’re having here in Iraq,’ he said … explaining that the violence indicated there was something to fight against — American progress in building up Iraq.” <11>

War is Peace … Freedom is Slavery … Ignorance is Strength. I distinctly remember when I first read “1984” thinking that it was very well done but of course a great exaggeration, sort of like science fiction.

Clinton was equally profound on May 1, speaking to an assemblage of State Department employees. Discussing Venezuela and Bolivia, she said that the Bush administration “tried to isolate them, tried to support opposition to them, tried to turn them into international pariahs. It didn’t work. We are going to see what other approaches might work.” Oh … uh … how about NOT trying to isolate them, NOT supporting their opposition, NOT trying to turn them into international pariahs? How about the National Endowment for Democracy, the Agency for International Development, and the US Embassy NOT trying to subvert their revolutions? And when she says “It didn’t work,” one must ask: Work to what end? To return the two countries to their previous condition of client-states? Perhaps like with Nicaragua, about whom the Secretary of State said improving relations was important to counter Iran’s growing influence. She noted that “the Iranians are building a huge embassy in Managua. You can only imagine what it’s for.” <12> I can only imagine what Ms. Clinton imagines it’s for. What is the new American Embassy in Iraq — the biggest embassy in the entire history of the world, in the entire universe — What is that for? Another example of Obamachange that means no change. What is it with American officials? Why are they so insufferably arrogant and hypocritical?

Notes
1. Washington Post, February 24, 2009
2. See, for example, “Executive Order – Ensuring Lawful Interrogations”, January 22, 2009
3. See The Observer (London), February 8, 2009 for an account of how conditions were still very awful at Guantanamo as of that date.
4. Video of Bush
5. New York Times, February 10, 2009, plus their editorial of the next day. In April, a federal appeals court ruled that the detainees’ lawsuit could proceed.
6. Testimony before the International Commission of Inquiry On Crimes Against Humanity Committed by the Bush Administration, session of January 21, 2006, New York City
7. See William Blum, “Rogue State: A Guide to the World’s Only Superpower”, chapter 5.
8. The Independent (London), May 27, 2007
9. Washington Post, April 26, 2009
10. Washington Post, October 28, 2003
11. New York Times, April 16, 2003
12. Associated Press, May 1, 2009
–
William Blum is the author of:
• Killing Hope: US Military and CIA Interventions Since World War 2
• Rogue State: A Guide to the World’s Only Superpower
• West-Bloc Dissident: A Cold War Memoir
• Freeing the World to Death: Essays on the American Empire
Portions of the books can be read, and signed copies purchased, at
www.killinghope.org
Previous Anti-Empire Reports can be read at this website.
To add yourself to this mailing list simply send an email to bblum6@aol.com with “add” in the subject line. I’d like your name and city in the message, but that’s optional. I ask for your city only in case I’ll be speaking in your area.
(Or put “remove” in the subject line to do the opposite.)
Any part of this report may be disseminated without permission. I’d appreciate it if the website were mentioned.

www.killinghope.org

By Vladimir Ryzhkov

The recent annual meeting of the Council for Foreign and Defense Policy, a Moscow-based think tank, underscored the confusion and distress among leading Russian politicians, analysts and policymakers. The meeting was dedicated to discussing the results of these last two decades. If in recent years they were all caught up in a frenzy of patriotism, muscle-flexing and shouts of “Russia is rising from its knees!” this spring has marked a clear shift in mood. Now they are much more sober and reflective. The economic crisis and Russia’s continuing foreign policy failures have hit them like one big cold shower.

This year marks the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. It is interesting to compare how far the West has advanced since 1989 and how Russia has fallen behind. First, NATO membership grew in three successive waves over the last 20 years, adding 12 new countries, including former Warsaw Pact countries and three former Soviet republics. In addition, the European Union similarly added 15 new countries in three waves of expansion, reaching a current total of 27 member states. But this expansion is by no means completed; a number of countries are standing in line to join NATO and the EU.

Twenty years ago, Russia lagged behind the development of the Western world, and it has yet to close that gap. To be fair, the Kremlin was successful in creating the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, strengthening the Collective Security Treaty Organization and exploiting the monopoly over the transit of energy resources from Central Asia, but these gains were heavily outnumbered by the country’s failures. Since 1989, Russia has steadily lost its influence on the global arena and soured its relations with most of its neighbors. For example, relations with Georgia and Ukraine are now hopelessly ruined. Among the few friends that remain, relations are not nearly as strong as Russia would like. One vivid example: None of its allies, except Nicaragua, has recognized the independence of Abkhazia and South Ossetia.

If Russia’s foreign policy and economic failures during the reckless 1990s were attributed to the overly “pro-Western orientation” of President Boris Yeltsin’s administration, this could not be applied to the first decade of the 2000s. Under former President Vladimir Putin, Russia regularly lambasted the United States. At the same time, Russia experienced an economic boom until last fall and became the eighth-largest economy in the world in terms of nominal gross domestic product. At the same time, few leaders spoke openly about the fact that Russia held a much lower place — No. 74 — in the list of countries according to per capita income.

From 1989 to 2009, the number of Russia’s friends has diminished while its ill-wishers have grown. In fact, the Kremlin suffered a double defeat: It lost its status as a global superpower and simultaneously failed to modernize its economy and institutions.

In stark contrast to China and India, over the last two decades Russia has not managed to modernize its economy. Instead, its economy became even more reliant on raw material exports than during the Soviet era, and the country failed to create functional government institutions. The country has still not been able to develop independent courts or parliament, nor has it been able to build a modern army. Moreover, there is no effective control over the bureaucracy, little protection of private property and corruption continues to be a debilitating, systemic problem.

In short, Russia remains a colossus on clay feet with a bad reputation in the world — a fact well understood not only by the West and China, but also by our closest neighbors. A country run by a clan of siloviki with an economy so heavily dependent on oil and gas exports cannot become a center of influence or a respected global power, particularly when it must compete with advanced and influential industrial power centers such as the European Union, the United States and China. If Russia does not modernize its political and economic institutions, its decline will only get worse.

The crisis has clearly demoralized the ultrapatriots among the members of the Council for Foreign and Defense Policy. It remains to be seen, however, if they are ready to openly admit the fundamental failure of Putin’s power vertical and sovereign democracy.

Vladimir Ryzhkov, a State Duma deputy from 1993 to 2007, hosts a political talk show on Ekho Moskvy.

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