Russia: Other Points of View

RUSSIAN FEDERATION SITREP

by Patrick Armstrong

RUSSIAN ATROCITIES!!!! The Americans attack an MSF hospital in Afghanistan and lie about it. (The lack of response to their demand for an international inquiry is "embarrassing" says MSF. Today's gruesome details.) The Saudis attack an MSF hospital in Yemen and lie about it. Negligible! Russians bombed four hospitals in Syria! no, it's seven! no, it's twelve! Sources? The usual GONGOs, including the ever-compliant Bellingcat, and mumbles from the State Department. Not ours, says MSF, nor ours says Red Cross. Oh well, push a new one out there. The usual tame sources shriek that Russia is killing civilians. That didn't work the last time – the fakery was swiftly exposed.

MORE PROPAGANDA. "This is the first time that Russia has publicly acknowledged that Assad may have to go" or "Changing stance?". Nope – unchanged since June 2012: "This issue has to be settled by the Syrians themselves." It's the West that's changed its line on "Assad must go": UK, USA. In fact, the recent Vienna declaration is everything Russia wanted: another Russian diplomatic victory (or victory for realism and coherence, I prefer to say). Which probably explains the rash of atrocity stories above.

WASHINGTON ON SYRIA. Incoherent. We are somehow supposed to think that US special forces have been put into Kurdish areas and will be supported from Turkey by US aircraft at the same time that Turkey is attacking the Kurds. How does that work? What does NATO do if the Turks bomb Americans? Does that make sense? Is your local MSM outlet asking any questions? No wonder Jordan has signed on to the Russian effort, Iraq is baulking and Afghanistan is interested in Russian help. Meanwhile Canada is pulling out of the US led effort and the UK is wobbly. Watch the video – do you see any plan there that you would want to follow? On the other hand, Washington has been trying to get rid of Assad for years. Why? "Barrel bombs" we're told.

MOSCOW ON SYRIA. Coherent. Assad visited Moscow – the whole thing was announced after he returned home. Contrary to silly claims from the NYT – "chilly reception"! – it's clear it was a series of important meetings with Russia's relevant leadership. Moscow's position is coherent and consistent: 1) to destroy the state structure of Syria will create chaos that only Daesh will profit from (vide Libya); 2) Assad is the legitimate head of the Syrian government; 3) if the Syrian people choose someone else in the future, Moscow will work with him; 4) support the forces on the ground that actually fight Daesh.

PLANE CRASH. The latest theory, based on the "black boxes", is that the crash was caused by an engine explosion. But what caused that?

IN CASE ANYONE HAD FORGOTTEN... Two ICBM tests and two SLBM tests this week.

RUSSIA INC. Has the Russian economy turned the corner? This astute observer argues that it might have.

UKRAINE. Local elections were held and I am amused to see that they have received little coverage in the WMSM. That's of course because they didn't go the way they were supposed to. A rather low turnout, even if you believe the official numbers. Yatsenyuk's party had so little support it didn't even run, Poroshenko's party didn't do that well, the nazis (in this case Svoboda. Don't like "nazi"? well see J8 for the European Parliament's view before fashions changed) did well in the west and the Opposition Bloc did well in the east. Better not have elections in Mariupol at all. The country is every bit as divided as it always has been. Are we in the Night of the Long Knives, or Thermidor? The security police have arrestedthe leader of one of the nazi battalions and there is a story that the leader of another has been taken. Some sort of investigation of the Maidan shootings is happening which could implicate another. Was there an assassination attempt on the Prosecutor General? Stay tuned. But I'm sure you will all be happier now AFP has told us President Poroshenko is richer than before.

GEORGIA. There is a phone recording of Saakashvili plotting a coup in Georgia; Tbilisi has opened a criminal investigation. PM Garibashvili is not amused. The recording is apparently real although Saakashvili blusters that "the Russians" touched it up.

MEANWHILE, PIVOTING TO ASIA. Washington did its sailpast. Watch this short video of the Chinese response; do you think Beijing is joking? I don't. Something to think about: a Chinese attack submarine closely followed a US carrier last month.

© Patrick Armstrong Analysis, Ottawa, Canada Websites: ROPV, US-Russia, Russia Insider

Reflections on Hill's and Gaddy's "The American Education of Vladimir Putin" (The Atlantic, 16 February 2015)

http://gordonhahn.com

February 17, 2015

Reflections on Hill's and Gaddy's "The American Education of Vladimir Putin" (The Atlantic, 16 February 2015)

Fiona Hill and Clifford Gaddy have provided a superb analysis of Russian President Vladimir Putin's alienation from America and its foreign policy. In most accounts nowadays Russia's actions are interpreted shorn of context. "Russia invaded Georgia." "Russia invaded Ukraine." "Putin criticized America." "Russians see the U.S. as an Enemy." Routinely, almost unanimously, Russia is portrayed as acting spontaneously in a vacuum with reference to the world around it. Its policies and actions are not responses to Western policies and actions. They are carefully thought out plans designed to defeat the West, regardless of what the West may or may not do. 

For example, in the 2008 Ossetian war, Russia is said to have begun the war. What preceded Russia's invasion - Georgia's massive bombing of South Ossetia's capitol of Tskhinval(i) with inaccurate GRAD missiles, the killing of one hundred civilians and 19 Russia peacekeepers in the GRAD bombings, and Georgian troops' invasion of South Ossetia and crazed rampage through Tskhinval(i) - is left out of the picture. Similarly now, accounts of "Russia's war in Ukraine" and "Russia's invasion of Ukraine" leave out prior events: . Moreover, the nature of Russia's intervention in the Donbass is overstated and 'evidence' is often shoddy and even falsified by Kiev and taken as gospel truth without question by US government and media.

NYT Foreign Correspondent speaks up on US mainstream media

Chris Hedges, veteran NYT foreign correspondent for 20 years, was also our finest Middle East correspondent. Unlike most others, he spoke fluent Arabic.  But when he came out against the lead up to the Iraq war in 2002 because he knew this war would end in disaster, this was the end of his career as a top national journalist.  Since leaving the NYT he hasn't had a dependable salary on which to raise his family. Chris is also a Presbyterian minister and a great humanitarian. 

In his Youtube, he points out that only when the American public collectively goes up against a war, will the Washington war lords stop their heinous drive to build, order, buy and sell military implements with which to forge ever new wars based on falsified information which the American public believes to be true.  How many times do we need to be fooled before we collectively go up against this travesty?

Put this URL below in your browser and watch for 9 minutes of riveting truth.

http://dandelionsalad.wordpress.com/2014/11/28/chris-hedges-weve-decapitated-more-civilians-than-isis-ever-has/ 

Warm Holidays to you, 

Sharon

"EVERYTHING IN RUSSIA IS AWFUL"... AS PUTIN'S OLYMPICS BEGIN

A Historical Perspective by Sarah Lindemann-Komarova

(bio at end)

Over the past few weeks, Western media’s “everything in Russia is awful” wall of sound, has achieved a screech so loud that it reminds me of a crashing meteorites––reminiscent of the 2013 one that (according to the NY Times and other western media outlets) “landed in Siberia”. Except that the meteorite landed in Chelyabinsk, a city in the Urals Region.

This recent escalation in sound concerning Russia is, no doubt, in honor of the upcoming Sochi….I mean “Putin’s” Olympics.   I refer to the cacophony as “sound” because it is impossible to consider most of what we hear, see or read today regarding Russia as meaningful analysis or solid reporting.  Denver is not in the Midwest; Chelyabinsk is not in Siberia; this sloppy agenda-driven journalism is scary, like an impending meteorite blast.  The extent of the damage is impossible to assess as the sonic boom is followed by a descending flash across sky before it hits. All we know for sure is that this can’t be good. 

RUSOLOGY AND THE DECLINE OF HONEST DEBATE

COMMENTARY

By Gordon M. Hahn 

Recent writings by Russian analysts display a worrying trend of falsification and distortion and an overall degeneration of what might be called “Rusology” or the study and analysis of Russian politics, economics, society, and culture. Recent distortions go beyond a ‘mere’ misrepresentation of the facts on the ground in Russia. Rather, we see attempts by some politicized analysts to misrepresent the articles of those with whom they have disagreements. This devolution represents a larger intellectual dishonesty in current political discourse wherein reasoned, fact-based argumentation is replaced by inexact or even non-existent sourcing in one’s own work. 

Thus, Russian analyst Liliya Shevtsova recently wrote the following: “Take a look at yet another “artist” producing an optimistic portrait of the Russian landscape: Gordon M. Hahn. Here is how he tells his own ‘history of Russia’ (keeping in mind that in fact that he wrote all this long after it was clear who Medvedev was and where Putin is heading). ‘Medvedev’s presidency was marked by a political thaw and significant liberalizing reforms,’ (!) Hahn writes.  After the rigged elections and Putin’s return to the Kremlin, Hahn insists that Russia has experienced a ‘return to democratization and market reforms... After the elections, the new Duma began to function more democratically... The Kremlin has responded [to the protests] by expanding the space for political expression, participation and competition’” (Liliya Shevtsova, Russia XXI, Carnegie Endowmwnt for International Peace, p. 74-75).

IS RUSSIA'S PUTIN A SECRET FAN OF MITT ROMNEY?

COMMENTARY

"Is Russia's Putin a Secret Fan of Mitt Romney", asks Moscow bureau chief of Voice of America?

See article at end of this rebuttal 

by Gordon M. Hahn

US taxpayer-funded Voice of America (VOA), Moscow bureau chief James Brooke must be mirror-imaging.  In his article “Is Russia’s Putin a Secret Fan of Romney” published by VOA, Brooke argued, in essence, that Putin is glad that Republican Party presidential candidate might regard Russia as ‘the No. 1 geopolitical foe’ of the United States.  Such statements will allow him to maintain the 'fortress Russia' atmosphere and boost U.S. defense spending should he be elected. 

Ironically, Brooke backed up this claim by asserting that “Putin has inflicted on Russians the kind of anti-American campaign not seen here since the Soviet era. With 'foreign agents,' and 'treason' the flavors of the political season, today's Kremlin might be better off without an 'Amerikanski partnyor' in the White House.”  

I say “ironically” because Brooke continues to engage in an already overly exaggerated U.S. journalistic campaign which has targeted Putin’s Russia for human rights and democracy violations––one that goes far beyond what Moscow's violations really deserve.

To be sure, Russia is not close to a full democracy.  Since his return to the presidency in May, Putin has put the brakes on Dmitry Medvedev’s political thaw and cracked down on Russia's street opposition considerably beyond what Russian law and general propriety require.  And, yes, he may be responsible for anti-American propaganda on state-controlled media.  But in some respects it has been America's "Russophobia" that has driven "America-phobia" in Russia, as well as visa versa.  There are long-standing self-fulfilling prophecies that are responsible, in part, for driving the downturn in U.S.-Russian relations.

RESPONSE TO ESTONIAN DEFENSE MINISTER'S ERRONEOUS ARTICLE

Problems of Expansionism: Russia, NATO, and Georgia

by Gordon M. Hahn

A September 10^th Wall Street Journal article by Estonia’s Defense Minister Urmas Reinsalu (printed below) demonstrates why NATO expansion has been the biggest among the US’s post-Cold War foreign policy mistakes––especially when it comes to Russia.  NATO expansion by the U.S. and other western countries, has made it impossible to fashion a balanced policy that takes into account the security interests of both Russia and its neighbors.  Moreover, it has brought more radically Russophobic countries in the former Soviet Union into NATO, prompting more expansion and thus Moscow’s continuing angst about the military bloc.  Minister Reinsalu presents a deliberately distorted view of the August 2008 Georgian-Ossetian-Russian war and Russian President Vladimir Putin’s recent statements regarding that war.

Minster Reinsalu claims that Putin “told reporters that he had approved Russia's 2008 invasion of Georgia two years before it took place.”  But Putin said nothing of the sort.  Putin was responding to a journalist’s question at a press conference as to whether “Russia did not really have plan of action in the event of military aggression of Georgia against South Ossetia?” Putin responded: “There was a plan, and, in my opinion, this is no secret, specifically within the framework of this plan the Russian side also acted.  I already have spoken about this publicly earlier as well.  It (the plan) was approved and agreed upon by me.” 

PUTIN AND RUSSIANS NEED A BREAK

REPRINTS

Should Russia copy the American model of democracy? Former U.S. Consul General in St. Petersburg John Evans explains why it shouldn't.

September 17, 2012
by John Evans http://rbth.ru/articles/2012/

This past summer has been a dispiriting one for U.S.-Russian relations, and the prospects arising from the U.S. presidential campaign  now underway are even less encouraging. One of the many misconceptions that Americans had about Russia after the fall of the Soviet Union was that it would embrace Western democracy – preferably a two-party system like ours – and soon become something like, say, France.  We were wrong in our prediction.  Russia has always been on her own trajectory, just as every nation fundamentally is. 

Why do we think Russia ought to resemble the United States?  One would like to trace it back to what Alexis de Tocqueville said in “Democracy in America.” “Each of [these nations] seems to be marked out by the will of Heaven to sway the destinies of half the world,” but one doubts that is the source.  So why is it that we Americans are so obsessively interested – and usually agitated – by shortcomings we observe in Russia?  During the competition between two opposing social systems during the Cold War, it was perhaps understandable, but now?
 
First of all, Americans still confuse “Russia” and “Russians” with the “Soviet Union” and “Soviets.”  It is embarrassing to note the frequency with which speakers on Russian affairs here in Washington still – more than two decades after the collapse of the Soviet empire – make that simple slip of the tongue and refer to “Soviets,” when clearly “Russians” would be appropriate.  When a major presidential candidate declares that Russia is the “number one foe” of the United States, that is more than a lapsus linguae; however, the failure to distinguish between the two is part of a larger, and regrettable, pattern.

MAKE IT STOP: ANOTHER MSM CARICATURE OF RUSSIA

COMMENTARY

by Gordon Hahn

A recent piece in the National Review provides yet another example of one-sided Russia-bashing posing as objective, dispassionate analysis in the U.S. mainstream media.  The article titled “Russia’s Choice” by David Satter reminds one of those touched-up Soviet era photographs in which the images of purged leaders were removed from the picture (often not so very skillfully) so as not to complicate the viewer’s rosy perception of Soviet politics and history with any inconvenient, contradictory notions or facts.  In the NJ article’s case, while the average reader could not possibly catch the excluded nuances that would fundamentally transform the perception of Russian politics intended by the author;  someone who follows Russian politics closely with a more nuanced eye can fill in the empty spaces left by Satter’s ignoring the past year of Russian history.

While I agree with Satter that Russia would be better off if Putin had decided to retire and handed the baton to his liberal ‘successor’, Dmitrii Medvedev, or another more democratic politician, I cannot agree with Satter’s distorted description of the Medvedev presidency or his characterization of the tumultuous events of recent months.

First, the author claims that “Putin's decision to run for a third term as president exposed the presidency of Dmitri Medvedev in 2008-­12 as a sham. Despite his pledges to fight corruption and his denunciations of ‘legal nihilism,’ Medvedev achieved only one thing during his tenure: He extended the president's term in office to six years.” 

PUSSY RIOT CONDUCTS A TYPING SCHOOL

REPRINTS

by Patrick Armstrong

The article originally appeared on http://us-russia.org/80-pussy-riot-conducts-a-typing-school.html

As we all know, a group calling itself Pussy Riot staged a stunt in Moscow’s Christ the Saviour Cathedral in February. Three members were arrested and have been sentenced to two years in jail. Which, less time served in “preventative detention” which counts twice, amounts to 14 months in prison. With the possibility of parole.

I’m not here going to talk about what they said and did in the church or any of the stunts that they pulled before or during the trial that probably extended the process. I’m not even sure of my own opinion about what should have happened to them. My concern here is the suspicious unanimity of coverage in the Western media.

We hear much about how they are mothers, as if there were some hitherto unknown legal principle that mothers get a free pass. [Note Eugene Ivanov has corrected me: there is a provision on Russian law for clemency towards pregnant women and mothers of small children which was not applied in this case. But, even so, I do not recall and Western outlet pointing this fact out.] We are told their ages and they are described as a “punk band” or sometimes as a “feminist punk band”. They are protesters against Putin. And, of course, it is taken for granted that Putin is really the law and judge in the case. Der Spiegel has all the memes. Masha Lipman misses out telling us that some are mothers. A particularly vapid piece in the New York Times about their style misses the mother part too. But a piece in Huffington Post gets them all in. An especially absurd piece in the Globe and Mail hits all the notes – and more: “Like the Pussy Riot heroines, whose names should be written with markers across all of our bodies, if only to remember an era in which we, too, were not afraid.” The Guardian gets them all in. As does the Bellona NGO. Something not mentioned in all the stuff about Putin and the Russian Church being in cahoots is that both the Chief Mufti and the Chief Rabbi also supported Putin).