From a-list-admin at lists.econ.utah.edu Thu Nov 1 06:01:02 2001 From: a-list-admin at lists.econ.utah.edu (a-list-admin@lists.econ.utah.edu) Date: Sat Jul 8 08:08:22 2006 Subject: [A-List] Mission to expel Message-ID: Wholly consistent with the Birt/Dyke policy regarding news and current affairs, as evidenced by the output of BBC World... Documentary department jobs slashed Jason Deans The Guardian, Thursday November 1, 2001 The BBC is axing 129 programme-making posts in its factual and learning department. The long-anticipated cuts will fall mainly in London, but BBC production staff in Manchester will also be affected. Management jobs in Birmingham will also go, but the brunt of the losses will be in London. The factual and learning department makes general documentaries and arts programmes. Shows made by the department include Timewatch, Omnibus, Airport and When Louis Met.... BBC factual and learning staff, who have been waiting for months to hear about their fate, are to be told about the cuts this morning. The BBC was originally planning to introduce the cuts in the summer. But the announcement was delayed because it was feared news of documentary and arts programme-makers getting P45s might send the wrong signal to the culture secretary, Tessa Jowell, while she was deciding whether to give the go-ahead for the BBC's proposed new digital TV services. Full article at: http://media.guardian.co.uk/broadcast/story/0,7493,584689,00.html Michael Keaney Mercuria Business School Martinlaaksontie 36 01620 Vantaa Finland michael.keaney@mbs.fi From a-list-admin at lists.econ.utah.edu Thu Nov 1 06:31:03 2001 From: a-list-admin at lists.econ.utah.edu (a-list-admin@lists.econ.utah.edu) Date: Sat Jul 8 08:08:22 2006 Subject: [A-List] The Guardian Message-ID: Over on PEN-L we've had a debate (of sorts) regarding the role of the UK media in the great scheme of things. The Guardian has a reputation as an outlet of liberal/left opinion, and, true enough, you can find occasional voices of reason there, such as Paul Foot, Gary Younge, Melissa Benn, Seumas Milne and Larry Elliott. Tory Geoffrey Wheatcroft also makes regular, readable and interesting contributions, tellingly critical of the status quo. Even John Pilger gets a look-in occasionally. But for every one of these there is a multitude of Blairites who can be relied upon to relay the true thinking of the UK permanent government and its natural party, New Labour. Thus the article below. Anyone watching BBC World last night would never have known of Blair's embarrassment, although his discomfort was plainly visible (arms flailing manically in frenzied gestures of conciliation). News domestic to Britain requires a more sophisticated gloss, however, and this is it -- a farrago of propaganda and disinformation aimed at discrediting the very person/regime that, 24 hours earlier, was so crucial to *Blair's* strategy. Now it can be written off as the contradiction "at the heart of Bush's worldwide war". Never mind that Syria, like Iraq, has one of the most religiously pluralistic regimes in the region, unlike, say, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, allies of the west. Syria and Iran are, of course, heavily implicated in the 1988 Lockerbie disaster, but their cooperation was needed for Desert Storm in 1991 so Colonel Gaddafi was wheeled out to serve as the convenient whipping boy. And on it goes... How Blair's Syria gamble failed Attempt to rein in 'rogue state' proves disastrous Ewen MacAskill and Patrick Wintour in Damascus Thursday November 1, 2001 The Guardian Tony Blair visited the tomb said to contain the head of John the Baptist which is housed in the main mosque of Damascus's Old City. He might look back on it as an omen: hours later it was Mr Blair's head that was being served up on a plate. Downing Street officials had not expected much in the way of results from Mr Blair's first meeting with the young Syrian leader, Bashar al-Assad. But they did not anticipate that Mr Assad would reject Mr Blair's overtures in such a public and abrupt way. Mr Assad, dispensing with the usual diplomatic niceties, used a joint press conference to rebuff Mr Blair over the bombing of Afghanistan and Syria's policy of providing a haven to anti-Israeli groups classified by both the US and Britain as terrorists. Diplomatically, it was a disaster. Mr Blair has not looked as uncomfortable in the presence of a foreign leader since an outburst on Chechnya by the Russian leader, Vladimir Putin, during a joint press conference in London last year. Both Downing Street and the Foreign Office knew beforehand that Mr Blair was taking a risk in going to Syria, a country that is a dictatorship with an abysmal human rights record, and which is still engaged in fighting Israel by proxy. The decision was influenced mainly by a trip made to Syria a fortnight ago by Lord Powell, Lady Thatcher's former foreign affairs adviser. The recommendation to the prime minister was that Syria was ready to come in from the cold and that he should go. It now looks a blunder. The Syria trip joins the list of growing diplomatic setbacks since Mr Blair and the foreign secretary, Jack Straw, embarked on a series of whirlwind tours after the September 11 attacks. Mr Straw ran into trouble in Iran and Israel and Mr Blair was snubbed by Saudi Arabia two weeks ago. Mr Blair might have hoped for better from Mr Assad, who was being educated in Britain last year when his father died and he was called home to take over, and whose wife is British. But Syria represents the contradiction at the heart of George Bush's worldwide war against terrorism. Syria provides a home and cash for groups such as Hizbullah, one of the most disciplined and powerful groups of fighters in the Middle East, which forced Israel to leave the Lebanon and which continues to snipe at Israel along its border. Until this year Damascus had also been the headquarters of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine and still provides a haven for its members. The PFLP assassinated an Israeli cabinet minister a fortnight ago. During his discussion with Mr Blair in private, Mr Assad argued that these groups had a legitimate right to fight Israel. Giving the impression his hands were tied, Mr Assad said that he had to listen to the Arab street just as Mr Blair had to listen to his "street". But in the press conference, Mr Assad was much more outspoken and less emollient than Downing Street had been prepared for. He won applause from Syrian reporters for condemning the bombing of Afghanistan and reiterated that resis tance on the part of the anti-Israeli groups was legitimate. The Foreign Office would have told Mr Blair the visit was high risk. Mr Assad is no respecter of visitors: he used a press conference in Damascus in May to mark the Pope's visit to engage in an anti-semitic rant, which left the Pontiff embarrassed. Vulnerable president Hopes that Mr Assad would turn out to be a reformer after the tough dictatorship of his father have so far been misplaced. He is in a vulnerable position, surrounded by vested interests, unable to make the compromises that would bring reform. Political opponents, journalists and others are regularly thrown into jail. He is too weak to negotiate a peace settlement with Israel, which still occupies Syria's Golan Heights from the 1967 war. A Foreign Office source, making the most of the visit, said: "We were not going to brush the differences under the carpet. We want to have a debate with them about what constitutes terrorism." Mr Blair had twin objectives: one was to look for a way of weaning Syria away from its support for Hizbullah and other groups, and the other was to try to get Syria to re-enter talks with Israel on the return of the Golan Heights. He secured neither. Since Labour came to power, Britain has been pursuing a commendable policy of trying to bring the so-called "rogue states" or "states of concern" into the in ternational community. In contrast to the United States, it has restored diplomatic ties with Libya and Iran. Opening up a good relationship with Syria was the next obvious step. Downing Street and the Foreign Office shrugged yesterday at the suggestion that the visit had been a mistake and insisted that the test of whether the trip was worthwhile remained to be decided. If the visit marked the start of a dialogue between Syria and Britain, it would have been worthwhile. Even though the visit will not ease his talks with the Israeli prime minister, Ariel Sharon, today, Mr Blair concluded: "You can either stay out of the dialogue, or you can try to get into it and build a bridge of understanding for the future." Full article at: http://politics.guardian.co.uk/attacks/story/0,1320,584591,00.html Michael Keaney Mercuria Business School Martinlaaksontie 36 01620 Vantaa Finland michael.keaney@mbs.fi From a-list-admin at lists.econ.utah.edu Thu Nov 1 06:36:03 2001 From: a-list-admin at lists.econ.utah.edu (a-list-admin@lists.econ.utah.edu) Date: Sat Jul 8 08:08:22 2006 Subject: [A-List] News management Message-ID: Bear in mind Blair's speech to the Welsh Assembly this week: "we must never forget...", suggesting more than just a spontaneous and unsolicited patriotic manoeuvre on the part of CNN. CNN to carry reminders of US attacks Matt Wells, media correspondent Thursday November 1, 2001 The Guardian CNN is to risk accusations of bias by ordering news presenters to end reports from Afghanistan with a reminder that the Taliban regime harbours terrorists who supported the September 11 attacks on the US. The network says it seems "perverse to focus too much on the casualties or hardship in Afghanistan" without reminding viewers of its domestic service that up to 5,000 innocent people died in New York and Washington. Some CNN correspondents are understood to be concerned that a "pro-American stamp" will be put on the end of their reports. But CNN's executives are concerned that pictures showing misdirected US missile attacks landing on residential areas or Red Cross warehouses could be manipulated before they come out of Afghanistan. In a memo to staff, obtained by the Guardian, Rick Davis, CNN's head of standards and practices, says: "As we get enterprising reports from our correspondents or al-Jazeera inside Afghanistan, we must continue to make sure that we do not inadvertently seem to be reporting uncritically from the perspective or vantage of the Taliban. "Also, given the enormity of the toll on innocent human lives in the US, we must remain careful not to focus excessively on the casualties and hardships in Afghanistan that will inevitably be a part of this war, or to forget that it is the Taliban leadership that is responsible for the situation Afghanistan is now in." News presenters on the service that is shown to US viewers will be required to end each report with a formula such as: "We must keep in mind, after seeing reports like this, that the Taliban regime in Afghanistan continues to harbour terrorists who have praised the September 11 attacks that killed close to 5,000 innocent people in the US." Alternatively, they can say: "The Pentagon has repeatedly stressed that it is trying to minimise civilian casualties in Afghanistan, even as the Taliban regime continues to harbour terrorists who are connected to the September 11 attacks that claimed thousands of innocent lives in the US." And "if relevant", the presenter can say that "the Pentagon has stressed that the Taliban continues to harbour the terrorists and the Taliban forces are reported to be hiding in populated areas and using civilians as human shields". The memo concludes: "Even though it may start sounding rote, it is important that we make this point each time." Presenters on CNN International will not be subject to the edict. Walter Isaacson, chairman of CNN, told the Washington Post: "I want to make sure we're not used as a propaganda platform. We're entering a period in which there's a lot more reporting and video from Taliban-controlled Afghanistan. You want to make sure people understand that when they see civilian suffering there, it's in the context of a terrorist attack that caused enormous suffering in the United States." Jim Murphy, executive producer of the CBS Evening News, said: "I wouldn't order anybody to do anything like that. Our reporters are smart enough to know it has to be put in context." Bill Wheatley, NBC News vice-president, said: "I'd give the American public more credit, frankly." The BBC said it had no plans to include any such reminders on its own news programmes. However, a spokeswoman added: "Correspondents may or may not decide to put in this sort of detail in their reports to put things in context." Full article at: http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,3604,584636,00.html Michael Keaney Mercuria Business School Martinlaaksontie 36 01620 Vantaa Finland michael.keaney@mbs.fi From a-list-admin at lists.econ.utah.edu Thu Nov 1 19:58:03 2001 From: a-list-admin at lists.econ.utah.edu (a-list-admin@lists.econ.utah.edu) Date: Sat Jul 8 08:08:22 2006 Subject: [A-List] Re: A-List digest, Vol 1 #23 - 7 msgs Message-ID: a-list@lists.econ.utah.edu wrote: > Send A-List mailing list submissions to a-list@lists.econ.utah.edu To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/a-list or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to a-list-request@lists.econ.utah.edu You can reach the person managing the list at a-list-admin@lists.econ.utah.edu When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific than "Re: Contents of A-List digest..." The A-List Digest Today's Topics: 1. Pakistan is in danger of falling apart (a-list-admin@lists.econ.utah.edu) 2. Israeli "intelligence" (a-list-admin@lists.econ.utah.edu) 3. Britain/US split? (a-list-admin@lists.econ.utah.edu) 4. Europe/US rivalry (a-list-admin@lists.econ.utah.edu) 5. accessing the message archive (a-list-admin@lists.econ.utah.edu) 6. Republican contrarians ruminate on the dollar (a-list-admin@lists.econ.utah.edu) 7. CIA met bin Laden in July (Le Figaro) (a-list-admin@lists.econ.utah.edu) --__--__-- Message: 1 To: "Rad Green" , "Leninist International" Cc: Date: Tue, 30 Oct 2001 22:54:15 -0800 From: a-list-admin@lists.econ.utah.edu Subject: [A-List] Pakistan is in danger of falling apart Reply-To: a-list@lists.econ.utah.edu Pakistan is in danger of falling apart Regional separatism and support for Islamist groups are growing William Dalrymple Tuesday October 23, 2001 The Guardian A couple of years ago, on a visit to the North West Frontier, I called in on Khan Abdul Wali Khan. The Khan had once been one of the Pathan's great leaders; but he was now a frail old man. We sat in his summer house in the middle of his irrigated garden. The Khan poured jasmine tea and asked me about my impressions of the area. I told him what I had just seen at the nearby Darra arms bazaar: hundreds of men busy manufacturing home-made assault rifles and anti-aircraft cannon. "Yes," said the Khan. "There are now more than one million Kalashnikovs in this province alone. It has got completely out of control." He shook his head sadly. "I feel," he said, "as if I'm living on an ammunition dump." I thought of the Khan this week as anti-American protests spread across Pakistan. Although there has been unrest in Karachi and a bomb in Rawalpindi, it is among the Pathans that the rioting has been most serious: a cinema, the UN compound and a bazaar burned down by Pathans in Quetta, and four more shot dead in a village nearby; significantly, the local Baluchis have played virtually no part in the riots. Worse still on the frontier, where the Pathans are from the same tribes as their cousins in the Taliban, Peshawar has disappeared into a miasma of tear gas and police shooting, with at least half a dozen dead. Machismo is to the North West Frontier what religion is to the Vatican. Bandoliers hang over the men's shoulders; grenades are nonchalantly tucked into their pockets. I once walked into a Khyber tea house to find a group of Pathan mojahedin huddled in a corner dismantling a live landmine with a broken screw driver. None of the other tea drinkers blinked. The Pathans have never been completely conquered, at least not since the time of Alexander the Great. They have seen off centuries of invaders, and they retain the mixture of self-confidence, independence and suspicion that this has produced. Beyond the checkpoints on the edge of Peshawar, tribal law - based on the tribal council and the blood feud - rules unchallenged. The dominant Afridi tribe controls the Afghan heroin trade and kidnapping and murder are virtually cottage industries. It takes very little for latent discontent of the Pathans with the Pakistani government to erupt, but this latest wave of riots is on a different scale to anything since partition, raising the perennial question as to the future of Pakistan - can the centre hold? If many in Pakistan now question the long-term viability of the state, it is certain that none would be so ready to separate themselves from it as the Pathans. Throughout the 1940s, Wali Khan's father, known as Padshah Khan, passionately opposed the creation of Pakistan, leading the Pathans to side with Gandhi's Congress against Jinnah's Muslim League. During this period the Pathans believed that they would gain their own state, allied to India, just as East Pakistan - modern Bangladesh - was originally separated by thousands of miles from its western wing. In the bloodshed of partition, this Pakhtun state never happened, but the dashed hopes left the Pathans estranged from the idea of Pakistan. Padshah Khan spent the 1960s and 1970s struggling in vain for a union with the equally disgruntled Pathans in Afghanistan to form a new state - Pakhtunistan, straddling the Durand Line (the hated frontier drawn up by the British in 1893 which broke the tribes in two). But the Pakhtun nationalist spirit survived his death in 1988, and has mutated into a very different Islamist form under a variety of Taliban-like groups such as the Jamiat Ulema i-Islam (JUI). If, as seems quite possible, Afghanistan breaks up in the aftermath of the American assault, with the Tajik Northern Alliance controlling the north, and a Pathan post-Taliban successor state taking the south, then demands for the creation of Pakhtunistan can only gain momentum. Regional separatism is only one of the problems now faced by Pakistan. President Musharraf's decision to support the American assault on the Taliban, against the wishes of more than 80% of his population, has greatly strengthened Islamist groups, bringing them support from swathes of the population not normally part of their constituency. Serious civilian casualties in Afghanistan or heavy-handed action by the Pakistani security forces would further radicalise the population. Last week Musharraf sacked two leading pro-Taliban generals and placed three pro-Taliban religious leaders (including the spiritual leader of the JUI) under house arrest; but after a decade of Talibanisation, Pakistan has never been closer to an Islamic revolution, or at least an Islamist coup. Such a coup would put nuclear weapons into Islamist hands: Bin Laden's wildest dream. These strains and tensions within Pakistan can only increase in the months ahead. It is likely to be a bumpy ride. · William Dalrymple is the author of The Age of Kali: Indian Travels and Encounters (HarperCollins) ------------------------------------------- Macdonald Stainsby Rad-Green List: Radical anti-capitalist environmental discussion. http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/rad-green ---- Leninist-International: Building bridges in the tradition of V.I. Lenin. http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/leninist-international ---- In the contradiction lies the hope. --Bertholt Brecht --__--__-- Message: 2 Date: Wed, 31 Oct 2001 14:40:02 +0200 To: "A-List (E-mail)" From: a-list-admin@lists.econ.utah.edu Subject: [A-List] Israeli "intelligence" Reply-To: a-list@lists.econ.utah.edu News direct from Paul Wolfowitz's man in Scotland. Only the Israelis could come up with a scheme that links together all *their* enemies in one huge dastardly plot. And in whose interest is it for Pakistan's "shadowy ISI" to "establish" links between Iraq and al-Qaeda? Since when was the ISI a reliable source? Israeli intelligence warned US days before attacks IAN BRUCE The Herald, 31 October 2001 ISRAEL'S military intelligence service, Aman, issued an urgent warning of an impending terrorist "spectacular" against America, several days before the suicide bombers flew passenger airliners into New York's Trade Towers and the Pentagon on September 11. Aman had no details of the targets, but picked up enough indicators of major terrorist activity from a combination of informants and electronic eavesdropping to send out an alert, which also covered US interests in Britain, France and Germany. Much of the Israeli intelligence centred on Imad Mughniyeh, head of the Iranian-backed Hizbollah movement's foreign operations section, and on Dr Ayman Al Zawahiri, the Egyptian-born terrorist mastermind reputed to be Osama bin Laden's chosen successor. The Israelis say they have evidence linking both men to agents representing SSO, Iraq's foreign intelligence service, and believe Baghdad has provided finance and logistical support to them. Links between the terrorist network and Iraq have been established by Pakistan's shadowy ISI agency and by the Czech Republic's counter-intelligence service. Salah Suleiman, an Iraqi SSO agent, was detained on the Pakistan border last October after a series of trips into Taliban-controlled territory to meet bin Laden. After interrogation, he was deported. Iraqi agent, Ahmad Khalil Ibrahim Samir Al-Ani, has been expelled by the Czechs for "conduct incompatible with his diplomatic status". They had been monitoring his activities after a tip-off from Israel that he was planning to bomb Radio Free Europe, a station financed by the CIA that broadcasts to Iraq and Iran. Baghdad regards the broadcasts as "an act of aggression". During the surveillance, they photographed Al-Ani with Mohammed Atta, the al Qaeda agent believed to have flown the first plane into the World Trade Centre. Full article at: http://www.theherald.co.uk/news/archive/31-10-19101-0-24-15.html --__--__-- Message: 3 Date: Wed, 31 Oct 2001 14:47:35 +0200 To: "A-List (E-mail)" From: a-list-admin@lists.econ.utah.edu Subject: [A-List] Britain/US split? Reply-To: a-list@lists.econ.utah.edu World must tackle peace agenda, says Hain=20 Minister says greater global unity is needed to confront broader issues if war on terrorism is to be won Stuart Millar Wednesday October 31, 2001 The Guardian A senior government minister warned yesterday that forthcoming international negotiations on climate change, development and trade could influence the chances of long-term success in the campaign against terrorism.=20 Peter Hain, the Foriegn Office minister, said the international community would have to demonstrate greater political will and coherence in tackling broader global issues if it was to have any chance of defeating al-Qaida and other terror groups. "The war against terrorism is unlike other wars, because we cannot wait until the war is over to win the peace," he said. "Winning the peace is part of winning the war."=20 Mr Hain was speaking at a conference in London organised by the Royal United Services Institute and the Guardian to examine the key issues and challenges facing the international community in the aftermath of September 11.=20 In the first practical example of attempts to implement the cooperative world order outlined by Tony Blair in his speech to the Labour conference earlier this month, Mr Hain put the focus firmly on a series of crucial conferences from now into next year.=20 This week, talks are taking place in Morocco for the United Nations' framework document on climate change, while international trade negotiations begin next week in the Qatar capital, Doha.=20 In March next year, the UN is holding the financing for development conference in Monterrey, Mexico, which will be followed later in 2002 by the UN's world summit on sustainable development in Johannesburg. These events, Mr Hain said, would provide governments with a chance to show they had learned the lessons of September 11 and were willing to use the existing international framework to better effect.=20 He said: "The message from al-Qaida is that enhanced business as usual will not be enough.=20 "We need a step change in the urgency with which we tackle the peace agenda, in the amount we invest in it - not only financially but in political will and ingenuity."=20 He added: "We do not need new texts, new principles and treaties to win the peace. What we need now is better implementation to translate the texts we have into better lives for real people."=20 His comments may also be read as a veiled warning to the US that the doggedly unilateralist position adopted by George Bush since he arrived in the White House is no longer acceptable.=20 The summits are the first key test of Washington's willingness to re-engage with the international community on global initiatives to tackle diverse issues, such as global warming, third world poverty and the Aids epidemic in sub-Saharan Africa.=20 "These are the security challenges of the world after September 11," Mr Hain said. "The grand coalitions of the 21st century will not be coalitions of government alone, because governments acting alone cannot provide solutions to this kind of problem."=20 But Mr Hain sidestepped questions about whether this ambitious vision could ever be realistically implemented when the US and Britain had made so many deals with countries previously regarded as pariahs to prop up the coalition for military action in Afghanistan.=20 Jonathan Eyal, a senior fellow of the RUSI, said a price was being paid to maintain the coalition which could affect future success.=20 "We have heard nothing recently about the need for democracy in the Gulf, or about the export of this arid form of Islam coming from the Gulf.=20 "We have three central Asian countries which do not have an accountable system of government, and nobody is saying much about Chechnya in the last few weeks.=20 Mr Eyal asked: "Are we not repeating exactly the same problems we have in the past, acquiring fairweather friends and having bigger difficulties later on?"=20 But Mr Hain replied only that these issues needed to be addressed by the new world order. Full article at: http://www.guardian.co.uk/waronterror/story/0,1361,583838,00.html Michael Keaney Mercuria Business School Martinlaaksontie 36 01620 Vantaa Finland michael.keaney@mbs.fi --__--__-- Message: 4 Date: Wed, 31 Oct 2001 16:59:40 +0200 To: "A-List (E-mail)" From: a-list-admin@lists.econ.utah.edu Subject: [A-List] Europe/US rivalry Reply-To: a-list@lists.econ.utah.edu As promised, related to the "Britain/US split" thread is this current development, very reminiscent of the Westland affair that almost brought down the Thatcher government in 1986. Italy was involved then, too, as the government's preferred bidder for Westland was the US/Italian Sikorsky-Fiat consortium, rather than the European consortium involving British Aerospace that Defence Secretary Michael Heseltine was trying to put together. The split within the Cabinet resulted in the resignations of Heseltine and Leon Brittan, Trade and Industry Secretary, who went on to become Deputy Head of the European Commission and got his revenge on his former sponsor (Thatcher) by pushing forward European integration (and incidentally helping to put into place the infrastructure to help the continuing UK "takeover" of the EU apparatus -- Brittan has been succeeded as Deputy by none other than Neil Kinnock, arch-"moderniser" of the Labour Party during the 1980s and one of the few, if not the only, survivor of the Commission headed up by Jacques Santer). =3D=3D=3D=3D=3D Airbus project pullout prompts tussle in Rome Financial Times, Oct 26, 2001 By JAMES BLITZ A big tussle was developing last night in the centre-right Italian government led by Silvio Berlusconi over a decision to quit a flagship European defence project.=20 Antonio Martino, defence minister, insisted that the government would stand by a decision to quit the Airbus 400M programme, a joint project to build a large military transport, despite objections from Renato Ruggiero, foreign minister.=20 "This aircraft is not necessary for Italy's military requirements. . . we have to spend our resources on other projects," said Mr Martino, a Eurosceptic figure, on national television.=20 On Wednesday night, Mr Ruggiero sharply criticised the move, saying he had not been consulted, and that he hoped the decision "was not the final one".=20 Mr Ruggiero said if there were economic and financial reasons for quitting the Airbus programme, those arguments must be heard. "But the overall decision has got to be justified," he said. "I am certainly extremely sensitive to arguments that would have led to a different decision being taken."=20 Mr Ruggiero, former head of the World Trade Organisation, is a career diplomat and apolitical figure. His entry into Mr Berlusconi's government was promoted by President Carlo Azeglio Ciampi, the head of state, as a means of signalling Italy's continued commitment to the European Union.=20 However, Mr Berlusconi has made little secret of his wish to forge a special bilateral relationship with the US. Mr Martino had admitted earlier this week that he had "many personal doubts" about continuing with the A400M programme. Industry analysts think Italy wants to enhance co-operation in this field with Lockheed Martin or Boeing in the US.=20 Some European diplomats think Italy's decision to quit the project explains why Jacques Chirac, French president, excluded Mr Berlusconi from a mini-summit with Britain and Germany in Ghent last Friday to discuss the attack on Afghanistan's Taliban regime.=20 But whatever the reason, Italy's centre-left opposition thinks tensions between Mr Berlusconi and Mr Ruggiero are emerging as the main fault-line in the centre-right government. "This may be a short-term problem, one that reflects the new government's initial difficulties working out a foreign policy line," said a leading centre-left figure. "But we may be on the verge of a major rift between the two, with significant repercussions."=20 Another sign of growing tension over Italy's foreign policy came in a newspaper interview with Francesco Cossiga, a former president.=20 He called on Mr Berlusconi to implement the immediate closure of Nato's military bases in Italy, arguing that Italy was being ignored by the US and its main European partners.=20 "We must accept that Nato is finished," said Mr Cossiga. "Its only role is to help the US dress up its military operations. We must start raising the problem of Nato's military bases in Italy. Closing them is the only way to avoid Italy falling into league division two." Full article at: http://globalarchive.ft.com/globalarchive/articles.html?print=3Dtrue&id=3D= 01 1026001201 Michael Keaney Mercuria Business School Martinlaaksontie 36 01620 Vantaa Finland michael.keaney@mbs.fi --__--__-- Message: 5 Date: Wed, 31 Oct 2001 19:22:23 +0000 To: A-List From: a-list-admin@lists.econ.utah.edu Subject: [A-List] accessing the message archive Reply-To: a-list@lists.econ.utah.edu The message archive is now accessible without need for a password. The archive address is: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/pipermail/a-list/ --__--__-- Message: 6 Date: Wed, 31 Oct 2001 19:30:41 +0000 To: A-List From: a-list-admin@lists.econ.utah.edu Subject: [A-List] Republican contrarians ruminate on the dollar Reply-To: a-list@lists.econ.utah.edu PFV 10/23 MONEYCHANGER - DR. WALKER TODD ON THE AMAZING LEVITATING US = DOLLAR A MONEYCHANGER Interview: DR. WALKER TODD ON THE AMAZING LEVITATING US DOLLAR Dr. Walker Todd is no stranger to Moneychanger readers. He was born in=20 Murfreesboro, Tennessee and graduated from Vanderbilt University. He holds= =20 a master's degree from the University of Wisconsin, a Ph.D. in French from= =20 Columbia University, and a J.D. from Boston University School of Law. For= =20 20 years he worked for Federal Reserve banks as a lawyer and economist. In= =20 1981, he served on the U.S. negotiating team that secured the release of=20 52 US hostages from Iran and established an international tribunal plan=20 for adjudicating claims against Iran. Today he is an independent economic= =20 and legal consultant living in Chagrin Falls, Ohio Dr. Todd kindly made=20 time for this interview on June 8, 2001. Although that dates=20 the interview somewhat (because we know what happened=20 immediately afterward, like the dollar index topping) and 9-11 has changed= =20 the scene tremendously, this interview is still very valuable today. It=20 offers us clues us about the troubles the US dollar faces, not to mention= =20 those faced by the "Masters of the Universe, the dollar's managers in the= =20 Fed and US treasury. Dr. Todd also offers us some danger signs to watch=20 for cracks in the dollar. MONEYCHANGER Frankly, I'm baffled. The US dollar obviously holds the key= =20 to financial events in the near future, but how can you explain its=20 historically high valuation? Even in the face of the long bond market=20 falling, Greenspan dropping interest rates, and a record balance of=20 payments deficit, the dollar just keeps on riding high. And this=20 surrealistic script is played out against the background of an obviously=20 topping stock market. TODD We were in a similar period in the early 1980s. Everyone likes to=20 forget that. From roughly August '82 until September '86, conditions were= =20 very much similar to today's, considering the US dollar versus competing=20 foreign currencies, the posture of US interest rates versus major foreign= =20 interest rates, and the like. Conditions at home were also similar. The=20 dollar had become very much too strong at that time. Manufacturing was in a world of hurt. If you'll recall that period saw=20 the first wave of wipe-outs in the auto industry, and some major steel=20 downsizing. LTV Steel in Cleveland filed for bankruptcy in '86 or '87. And= =20 the US was running what at the time looked like a record trade deficit=20 (current account deficit). These conditions are similar, and at the same time the stock market was= =20 in the middle of a big boom. Stock prices rose steadily from roughly 8/82= =20 to 9/86. A strong dollar is good for Wall Street. Since most people who=20 make their living on Wall Street live within a 50 - 100 mile radius=20 of New York city, they don't care much what happens to the rest of=20 the country -- as long as Wall Street prospers. The US Treasury Secretary, of course, always has to be concerned with=20 what Wall Street thinks of the Treasury. Nevertheless, he also represents= =20 the US public's interests in maintaining their treasury. Since 1934 the=20 Treasury has been charged exclusively with managing the dollar's foreign=20 exchange value. At the end of the day, responsibility for the dollar -=20 strong, weak, or whatever you have -- resides at the Treasury department.= =20 From roughly mid-`95 onward Clinton's administration touted the virtues=20 of a strong dollar policy to cure foreign country's ills. The theory was=20 that we would sacrifice a little bit of US Gross Domestic Product (GDP) to= =20 help bail out countries struggling to pay their debts. How do=20 we sacrifice? We expand US imports by keeping the dollar strong. But=20 if you're importing it, it doesn't add to GDP, does it? This theory=20 was triggered off Mexico's troubles at the end of 1994. Mexico, however, failed to recover before the next wave of=20 defaults began. That began in east Asia in summer 1997 with Thailand,=20 and eventually embraced Korea, Indonesia, and a bunch of others. As those= =20 countries began going down the tubes, once again the foreign policy=20 Establishment advisors to the Treasury began touting the virtues of the=20 strong dollar and expanded US imports to help these countries out of a=20 jam. In a meeting once I heard a staff economist of the Council on Foreign= =20 Relations say, "Well, it's going to cost us half a point of GAP to get=20 east Asia out of this slump -- but that's not much." What's the problem with that line of reasoning? The half a point of GDP= =20 never comes out of hide of Wall Street or the New York financial community. When they're talking about giving up half a point of GDP,=20 they're talking about shutting down steel mills, automobile plants,=20 and turning off farmers' exports. That's exactly what's been=20 happening ever since. We're just now living at the crest of the wave. MONEYCHANGER This was Rubin's and Clinton's idea? TODD It was. To give Rubin some credit, though, he was not a=20 wildly cheerleading, enthusiastic supporter of this policy. Instead,=20 Larry Summers was. MONEYCHANGER So this was Summers' policy. TODD Yes, and remember he started out as an assistant secretary=20 for international affairs, became under-secretary for international, then= =20 deputy secretary, and finally Treasury secretary at the end of the Clinton= =20 years. It was Larry who tended to run international policy at the Treasury. MONEYCHANGER Was he not a Kissinger prot=E9g=E9? TODD No, his guru was a Harvard economics professor named Martin = Feldstein. MONEYCHANGER Who used to belong to the president's council of economic=20 advisors. TODD Yes, under Reagan. MONEYCHANGER How long can a currency maintain a low interest rate policy= =20 and run high current account deficits? Both force down a currency's value.= =20 It's obvious that the bond market already smells a rat, because in spite=20 of Greenspan's interest rate drops, the long bond market refuses to rise. TODD Exactly. It's a telling point that about two months back=20 the crossover point was reached where the Fed cut rates but the long bond= =20 no longer fell. MONEYCHANGER Which implies the steely-eyed bond traders said, "Nope, we= =20 aren't going to play this hand." TODD Exactly. 1986 was only 15 years ago and there are probably enough=20 old boys around Wall Street who remember that and are saying, "No, if you= =20 want me to take 10-year risks with the dollar and US Treasury bonds, I=20 want to be paid a higher rate for it." The interesting thing is, why doesn't a similar concern pop up in the=20 gold price? MONEYCHANGER You tell me. The gold price has just made me throw my hands= =20 up in the air. There are only three possible explanations for its deadness. First, the derivatives revolution of the last 70 years has given people= =20 alternative to gold in disaster protection or inflation. TODD Right. At a minimum call it "inflation protection." The=20 market offers other vehicles besides gold. MONEYCHANGER Vehicles that they didn't have 20 years ago. The=20 second explanation is that the market has become so indifferent to=20 gold because for 70 years the American people has been propagandised=20 on this imaginary, fiat system so that finally we have a generation that= =20 has forgot gold. The third explanation is that they're just outright rigging the price. I= =20 think there's a lot of evidence for that. You can't view Greenspan's=20 history and conclude you have a man indifferent to the gold price. In=20 fact, back in 1994 he stated before Congress that any central bank that=20 ignores the gold price does so at its own peril. Still, gold doesn't=20 respond to these inflationary pressures. So maybe it's one of those three= =20 explanations, or a combination. TODD I think it's a combination. Around the= =20 margins there may be a little manipulation of the gold price. I haven't=20 yet seen enough hard evidence of the manipulation to buy the GATA theory=20 totally, but I think they've got their arms around at least a little bit=20 of the truth. The circumstances are such that it would only take a little bit=20 of manipulation to make a major change in the outcome. So I think=20 that there's a little bit of manipulation and still just enough=20 central bank gold sales under the Washington Agreement so that demand=20 is soft. MONEYCHANGER From the beginning of 1999 to the end of 1999, Greenspan=20 pumped $100 billion of currency into a system that began with $450 billion= =20 in circulation. The rate of monetary growth since then, depending on which= =20 monetary aggregate you use, has been clipping along well above 15%, and in= =20 some indicators above 20%. TODD Normally you'd say that's way too much, and the US has just gotten= =20 away with it because enough foreigners are willing to hold dollars, so we= =20 haven't yet had to pay the price. But I want to remind everybody about some earlier episodes, 1971 1979.= =20 A lot of official US policy is built on assuming that there will never=20 come a time when foreigners will get tired of holding US dollars. In the=20 two years I mentioned, 1971 1979, that's exactly what happened. They=20 called the Fed's bluff and said, "We're not going to finance your current= =20 account deficit any more, at least, not at the current exchange rate."=20 Willy-nilly, the US was forced to devalue. In 1979 they combined it with a= =20 major hammer-hit on interest rates. MONEYCHANGER A few months ago a professor from McGill University floated= =20 a theory that demand for cash dollars in Europe was keeping the dollar's=20 exchange rate up. At the end of this year the old national paper=20 currencies - Deutsche marks, pesetas, francs, lira - will be withdrawn and= =20 replaced by the paper Euro. At that point the folks with untaxed, black=20 market profits held in national currencies will lose them. If they try to= =20 swap them for Euro currency, they'll get caught. TODD Right, if you've been holding Deutsche marks underground, you've=20 got a problem. MONEYCHANGER So the professor's theorises that, anticipating=20 that changeover, Europeans are cashing in black market marks and=20 franks and lira for US dollars and holding their untaxed profits that=20 way. Add another fact to that. 70% of new $100 bills are sent=20 overseas, and Treasury estimates that two-thirds to three-quarters of=20 US currency circulates outside the borders of the US already. We already= =20 know there's a big foreign demand for US cash. To what extent is the Euro= =20 conversion affecting that? TODD It's just a small fraction of the whole, but at the margin=20 it accounts for a lot of the demand, like the official manipulation=20 of the gold price. It's not much as a fraction of the whole, but at=20 the margin it makes a big difference in the marginal price. That's=20 what is happening with foreign demand for the dollar. While it might=20 not amount to much as a fraction of the whole, it's still enough at=20 the margin to sop up as much as one-third to one-half of the=20 current foreign demand for dollars. MONEYCHANGER Which is significant at the margin. TODD Yes. MONEYCHANGER And the margin is what the people at the Fed are=20 always trying to control, just like herding cattle. If one breaks out,=20 you have to get him back in, or the rest of them will follow him. TODD Exactly. Good analogy. MONEYCHANGER What signs should we look for that the dollar is=20 coming unglued? One thing we haven't mentioned yet is the huge chunk of=20 US government debt that foreigners own. Two years ago that stood=20 at 40%. TODD It's still in that neighbourhood, a little over $2 trillion.=20 Ironically, the proportion of foreign ownership may keep rising as the=20 Treasury redeems debt. The denominator is the total publicly held debt and= =20 the numerator is the foreign held part. That foreign-held percentage will= =20 keep rising in the near future, even if they don't buy another dollar of=20 debt. Any significant liquidation of the foreign position in US government= =20 debt would be a major danger signal. MONEYCHANGER Where would we find that? TODD The only way you see it regularly is in the Fed's Board=20 of Governors H.4.1 Release, the weekly statement of condition of=20 the Federal Reserve banks. They also publish a monthly summary of that in= =20 the Federal Reserve bulletin. A line item entry there shows "US government= =20 securities held in custody by the Federal Reserve Banks for foreign=20 official and international accounts." You can always look at that total to= =20 see whether it's rising or falling. The benchmark number is $600 - 700=20 billion, where it has been in recent years. [Go to , where you will=20 find a list of dates to choose from. Choose the latest report. After the=20 body of numbered items, you will find the first remark. "On June 6, 2001,= =20 the face amount of marketable U.S. government and federal agency=20 securities held in custody by the Federal Reserve Banks for foreign=20 official and international accounts was $709,699 million, a change of=20 $ 2,692 million for the week." -- FS] MONEYCHANGER A liquidation of any significant portion of that debt would= =20 signal trouble. TODD Say the Japanese, with problems of their own, decide to cash=20 in their dollars, you might see $300 billion walk out the door.=20 You'd notice that in the Fed total. You might also see it in the long=20 bond rate. MONEYCHANGER Driving the value of long bonds down by=20 drastically increasing their supply. TODD Another signal would be a sudden, unexplained rise in the Euro. If= =20 the Europeans hold their interest rates more or less steady (and currently= =20 they are signalling that's exactly what they will do) and still the Euro=20 started rising rapidly against the dollar, that would be a signal that=20 people are bailing out of the dollar. MONEYCHANGER Recently the European Central Bank (ECB) dropped interest=20 rates. That certainly looked like collusion with the Fed. I think people=20 get confused when they listen to central bankers because they all loudly=20 proclaim their own independence. Yet once a month they meet in Basel at=20 the BIS. TODD The cynic would say they are independent of their governments but=20 they all collude with each other. [laughing] MONEYCHANGER When you were talking about the early '80s I was thinking=20 about the Plaza Accords. TODD The Plaza and Louvre Accords were the two things that kept turning= =20 the dollar around on a dime in '85 and '87. MONEYCHANGER The chart made it very obvious that some big policy change= =20 had been made. TODD But anyway I don't think we've got that sort of agreement yet. You= =20 might argue, we may need one to stem the rise of the dollar. [laughing]=20 Another signal to watch is the US Dollar Index, the trade-weighted value=20 of the dollar against major foreign currencies. The base year, by the way,= =20 is 1973, the first year of the official float of the dollar. A "100" on=20 the dollar index equals the 1973 value. At 95 or below, US manufacturers and exporters do okay. Between 95 and=20 100, we are losing export competitiveness. At 100, it becomes very hard for= =20 US exporters to sell anything abroad. The current dollar index is around=20 120. The last time it was that high was 1986. [For current quotes on the US Dollar Index, go to , in the=20 "Please select the FUTURE Commodity below" window, select "US Dollar=20 Index." You can get a daily or weekly chart of the US Dollar Index at --= FS] MONEYCHANGER Right before the stock market came down so hard. TODD Exactly. MONEYCHANGER The dollar index has stayed over 100 (with a few=20 short exceptions) since the beginning of 1998. So US=20 export competitiveness has been dropping for a long time. TODD Do you know about the four farmers' lawsuit in Colorado? MONEYCHANGER No. TODD Early in 2000 Gene Schroeder and three other plaintiffs filed=20 a federal suit against the Treasury and other departments.=20 They challenged the foreign exchange management of the dollar. On=20 what grounds? Because as it was being carried out, it subverts=20 the interests of farmers. This was wrong statutorily and constitutionally= =20 because it constituted an indirect "taking" of farmer's production and=20 property rights. When you look at the statutes that give the Treasury the= =20 power to regulate foreign exchange, or the executive branch power to=20 negotiate foreign bilateral trade agreements, all of those statutes are=20 conditioned on taking the agriculture's interests into account. Clearly,=20 they are not using these powers that way, so we're saying either you begin= =20 to do that or you pay us parity prices. Where has the lawsuit gone? Initially the federal district court=20 in Denver dismissed our complaint in July 2000. The farmers appealed=20 to the 10th circuit federal court of appeals. We asked for oral argument.= =20 The government opposed it, but we got oral argument anyway on March 13,= 2001. It was the biggest event in the history of the 10th circuit, except for= =20 the Timothy McVeigh stuff. We had over 120 farmers standing around a room= =20 designed to hold ninety. MONEYCHANGER They must have nearly croaked. They must have called out=20 every US marshal for a hundred miles. [laughing] TODD To give the court full credit, I thought they were great. As=20 a lawyer I was proud and pleased with the way the 10th circuit conducted= =20 itself that day. It was probably the finest hour in the history of the=20 American judicial system. The judges were informed, they had read all the= =20 briefs, they understood the arguments, they asked appropriate and=20 pertinent questions. It was a great day to be in the courtroom. They made it very clear that they took the issue very seriously and that= =20 they will issue a deliberate opinion. We're still waiting for that. If we win, that certainly throws a monkey wrench into the=20 Treasury's foreign exchange works. They suddenly have to consider new=20 factors in deciding whether to prop up the strong dollar and keep all=20 the things going that we were talking about. MONEYCHANGER Do you think Greenspan is riding a tiger? Does the new administration know they can't just climb off=20 the tiger? TODD Yes, and they also are well aware that if=20 Greenspan intends to induce a recession for them, they want get it over=20 with now, as opposed to two years from now. The longer he keeps delaying,= =20 the more likely that latter prospect is. MONEYCHANGER Why is= =20 he willing to take the gamble of keeping the stock market bubble alive? TODD Generally speaking I think he's concerned about the=20 financial condition of not only some banks but also some large=20 financial market players. As you sit there and see all these other=20 companies filing Chapter 11 it's clear he doesn't care if most companies=20 go bankrupt. What he cares about is banks and securities firms,=20 hedge funds, and so on. MONEYCHANGER So you're saying (and it shouldn't come as a surprise to=20 anyone) is that the country is run for the benefit of Wall Street, and the= =20 rest of us be damned. TODD Yes, but I want to give Treasury Secretary O'Neill some=20 credit. He's the first treasury secretary we've had from west of=20 the Alleghenies in at least 20 years. MONEYCHANGER But he also hails from Andrew Mellon's old firm,=20 Alcoa. [laughing] TODD Franklin, Franklin, Franklin, listen up. What was Andrew Mellon's=20 policy on gold in the 1920s? He liked it, didn't he? MONEYCHANGER Yes. TODD He's our kind of guy. Don't badmouth Andrew Mellon. MONEYCHANGER Okay, but O'Neill is part of the same old Wall Street Big= =20 Business Establishment. TODD Yes, but if you must choose between Andrew Mellon on the one hand=20 and Goldman Sachs on the other hand, which would you choose? MONEYCHANGER No choice. I'll go with Mellon every time. TODD Don't stand there waiting for the second coming. You're not going=20 to get it. O'Neill is such a refreshing change compared to what we've had= =20 to deal with in the last 20 years, especially the last 5 or 6 years, that= =20 I'll shout hosannas at the very mention of his name. MONEYCHANGER I was suspicious of Rubin and Summers. I think they would=20 do anything to make money for their crowd in New York. I could be wrong,=20 but I don't think they'd gag a minute at using the power of government to= =20 make money for their friends. Of course, they wouldn't do it in a direct= way. They wouldn't hand out $100 bills, but they would create=20 conditions whereby they can profit. In another direction, do you think it's possible that the dollar could=20 come unglued altogether? TODD Well, yes, but you have to define "unglued." Let's phrase=20 it another way. If the dollar index is at 120 and the powers that be=20 in Basel ordered us to get the dollar to a level so that the=20 current account deficit corrects itself and at least approach balance=20 again, how low do you have to take that index? Let's put a tag on that. The answer is, based on recent experience we have to get it at=20 least below 95, and to give it some running room you might want to take=20 it all the way down to 90. The last time they did a major adjustment=20 of that sort in the late '80s they took it all the way down to 87 or 88.= =20 Let's assume 90 on the dollar index is the target figure=20 for re-establishing a balanced current account. Well, 120 less 90=20 equals 30, and 30 divided by 120 equals 25%. You have to wipe out 25% of the US dollar's foreign exchange value. MONEYCHANGER My goodness! TODD That's the price of restoring a sustainable balance. That=20 great loss is the main complaint. People have been pointing this out=20 to the treasury for well over a year, back when the dollar index was only= =20 110. They warned the treasury, the longer you let this go on, the bigger=20 the adjustment you must take to return to a sustainable balance. MONEYCHANGER Walker, you're talking about returning the dollar to=20 a sustainable current account balance, but when I say "come unglued," I=20 mean the possibility of a collapse. TODD Don't think that the dollar can drop to 25% of present=20 value, because the world doesn't work that way anymore. Maybe in a=20 fair minded world it should, but in a manipulated, collusive,=20 central bank-run world, the greatest decline you're likely to see is in=20 the neighbourhood of 25 - 30%. What would that do to the stock market? You might trigger a larger than= =20 25% decline in the Dow Jones Industrial Average, just because once the=20 dollar goes to the weak side, foreign investors lose the incentive to buy= =20 US rather than European stocks. That would drain an awful lot of money out= =20 of Wall Street. A 25% correction in the dollar might trigger a 40% or 50%= =20 correction on Wall Street. MONEYCHANGER We've watched Greenspan push the limit on what we thought=20 was possible for central banks to do -- certainly major central banks --=20 in terms of inflation. Imagine 20% annualised monetary growth rates for a= =20 couple of years. He has kept air in the Wall Street Bubble, and kept on=20 blowing it up! In spite of all this, I believe I just heard you say that=20 fundamentally it is no longer possible for the dollar to collapse. TODD I think you'd see a 25% decline. That is entirely feasible now.=20 MONEYCHANGER But not an evaporation. TODD Right, not an evaporation. You won't see 1933 again. MONEYCHANGER Well, I suppose that's comforting. TODD You may get a generation long decline to 1933, but as an overnight= =20 phenomenon, no. [laughing] MONEYCHANGER I know that a "generation-long" decline is kind of a joke,= =20 but then again, it's not a joke. TODD We certainly went through that from 1966 forward. Over=20 the following generation the dollar lost a great deal of its value.=20 But the way the world is, assuming semi-rational men continue to run=20 it, I wouldn't expect the dollar to decline more than 25-30% at the most.= =20 Europeans will always have to be dragged in kicking and screaming. The=20 bidding would start with the treasury asking for 20%, and the Europeans=20 asking for 10%. The likely initial compromise is a 15% decline in the=20 dollar. That still does nothing. All you do at a dollar index value of 100= =20 is to lock in the trade deficit at the current level with no improvement.= =20 Then you have to ask, How do you like $400 billion trade deficits and $500= =20 billion current account deficits as far forward as the eye can see? MONEYCHANGER Doesn't that at some point decapitalise the United States? Doesn't that at some point destroy the value of the dollar? TODD Yes, but it has consequences that are more pernicious than that. It= =20 transfers US assets into foreign hands, inviting the re-creation of 19th=20 century finance, especially the first half of the 19th century. You are no= =20 longer the master of your own fate. You wind up having to do whatever=20 foreign creditors demand. MONEYCHANGER You become Argentina. TODD Yes. So it's pernicious from the standpoint of=20 constitutional governance in the long run. You don't want this trend to=20 continue, versus the views of the globalisers, who are all saying, "Well,= =20 we just ought to be one more happy trading station on the great plain of= =20 global trade." MONEYCHANGER Isn't there a fundamental issue of independence=20 and sovereignty here? So you're saying that it doesn't really matter much= =20 whether Republicans or Democrats are in charge . . . TODD Oh, I think it does matter, but it matters more which set=20 of Republicans. As long as you've got Republicans from west of=20 the Alleghenies running things, I'd argue you're better off than if=20 you have any set of eastern Democrats or eastern Republicans=20 running things. At the moment, we have the best set. MONEYCHANGER Is this like telling the man with diabetes that only his=20 toes are gangrenous? TODD Yes, it's not a nice position but you have to live with it. We can= =20 live with heartland Republicans. Where the problem always arises, as you=20 saw with Vermont senator Jeffors, is that eastern Republicans are a=20 different breed and you may not necessarily want them representing you. MONEYCHANGER Well, those of us from the South have felt that way for a=20 long time. What does all this say for the stock market? TODD I tend to agree with you that it feels like it's at the crest of=20 the wave, along with these other factors I've been discussing. You watch=20 that dollar index keep going up and start asking yourself, "Where's the= top? 125? 130?" The bubble will blow as high as Greenspan and the Treasury=20 allow that dollar index to go. MONEYCHANGER So our discussion has come full circle. The=20 really important indicator to watch right now is the US dollar index. TODD I think so. At 100, I think Wall Street just stays wherever it sits= =20 at the moment. It will just sit there a while. At 95 you have a prospect=20 for the DJIA to rise smartly, because US manufacturers' profits return. MONEYCHANGER But is the converse true? If the dollar stays high, is the= =20 stock market doomed? TODD No, suppose the dollar index went to 130. One way it would=20 get there is Greenspan the Treasury allowing long bond rates to continue= =20 to rise to sustain foreign investors' purchases of dollars in order to buy= =20 those Treasury securities at the higher rate. As long as you see a=20 corresponding rise in long term interest rates, that dollar index is=20 likely to keep going up and suck Wall Street up along with it. Where Wall Street would decline, I think, would be in that range from=20 120 falling to 100, because with the dollar index in that range, there's=20 no upside for the Dow. They still can't export anything, and nobody wants= =20 to buy your paper. MONEYCHANGER So on the one hand we export goods at the lower end of the= =20 dollar index range, and at the upper end of the range we export paper. TODD That's right. MONEYCHANGER What a world! [laughing] That's insane. TODD I agree with=20 you, it's an insane world. In the view of classical economists, and=20 Austrian economists especially, money ought to be a neutral factor. That's= =20 the virtue of forcing a central bank to adhere to some price that it=20 cannot control, a gold price, for example. MONEYCHANGER But I think I have understood that you are saying that we=20 can't go back to a gold standard or convertibility. TODD I think Anna Schwartz made the wisest comment I ever heard on this= =20 issue. She was asked that question at a CMRE meeting once, "Why don't we=20 go back to a gold standard?" She answered, "Because of the way central banks handle things."=20 This immediately followed her talk about what a botch central banks=20 had made of things. She added that at the Gold Commission in 1981 we decided that there are= =20 many virtues in the gold standard, but the problem is that government has= =20 grown far larger in our lives than it was in 1933, the last time we were=20 on a gold standard. At the time, if you looked at total government=20 expenditure was in the neighbourhood of 5 - 10% of GDP versus today where= =20 government at all levels is maybe 40% of GDP. That means in the old days=20 the necessary adjustments to maintain a gold price could be absorbed by a= =20 private sector that was 90% of GDP. Today that absorption would have to be= =20 taken by a private sector that's only 60% of GDP, so that the consequences= =20 for the living standards of the average American would be at least=20 50% more severe than in the old gold standard days of panics=20 or recessions. They would automatically be 50% worse to get you where you= =20 had to go. So the task in the near term is shrink government to the extent= =20 that you could then safely adopt and live with a gold standard. MONEYCHANGER So you must shrink government before you can ever get rid=20 of the central bank incubus? TODD And the bad news is, of course, that the Establishment controlling= =20 that central bank will fight like rabid dogs to keep you from shrinking=20 their government so as to take away their indirect control of everything=20 through their control of the central bank. MONEYCHANGER That implies also that without a central bank,=20 no government can metastasise to waste away 40% of the=20 commonwealth's production. TODD That's why the standard Democratic Party formulas are a disaster,=20 because they contemplate ever bigger government. MONEYCHANGER This has really been a cheerful conversation, Walker, but I= =20 really appreciate your insight on the dollar, and that's what we're going= =20 to keep our eyes on. Thanks very much. TODD You're quite welcome. [end] The Moneychanger is a privately circulated monthly newsletter edited by= =20 Franklin Sanders. Our goal is to help Christians prosper with their=20 principles intact in an age of monetary and moral chaos. Subscriptions are= =20 $95/year from P.O. Box 178, Westpoint, Tennessee 38486; (888) 218-9226). E-mail us at moneychanger@compuserve.com or visit our=20 website www.the-moneychanger.com . Copyright 1999, 2000 Le Metropole Cafe. All rights reserved. --__--__-- Message: 7 To: a-list@lists.econ.utah.edu Date: Wed, 31 Oct 2001 23:58:40 -0200 From: a-list-admin@lists.econ.utah.edu Subject: [A-List] CIA met bin Laden in July (Le Figaro) Reply-To: a-list@lists.econ.utah.edu The conservative and _respectable_ French newspaper Le Figaro dated October, 31, says that the "CIA would have met bin Laden past July = (....) at the premises of the American Hospital in the Dubai" emirate. He stayed there during 15 days to be treated of a "serious renal insufficience" by an US doctor, dr. Terry Callaway, a renowned = specialist. It seems to have been a gentlemen's meeting, since the main CIA agent = in place "would have even been informed about possible strikes" (Cet = agent aurait m=EAme =E9t=E9 inform=E9 sur d'=E9ventuels [*] attentats.). = It rather seems a joke: the CIA representative is not an undercover agent because he = is widely known overthere (que beaucoup de gens connaissent =E0 = Duba=EF). =20 [*] Note that in the Latin languages _eventuel_ means uncertain = but possible, although in English it means "taking place at un unspecified later time" (Webster). =20 Osama bin Laden imported to his refuge at Kandahar a mobile dialyse apparatus past year. Is this handicapped man capable to endure a = fierce persecution through the inhospitable and barren mountains of the rugged Afghanistan? Osama arrived to Dubai flying from the Pakistani airport of Quetta and = was probably accompanied by the second man of his terrorist ring, the = notorious Egyptian surgeon Ayman al-Zawahari, plus 4 bodyguards and an Algerian nurse. He was kindly visited not only by the CIA but also by many relatives and Arab personalities.=20 Le Figaro furthemore says that "the Dubai meeting was the logical suit = of a =ABcertain American policy=BB", so concluding its report on the old = ties between Osama bin Laden and CIA since 1979, at Istanbul, where he = managed a family's company. The newspaper also says that the FBI had already "discovered the =ABmontages=BB that CIA has developed with its = =ABIslamic friends=BB along the years" since the former agency traced the blowing = of the US embassies at Nairobi (Kenya) and Dar-es-Salaam (Tanzanie) in = August, 1998, to a military explosive made in USA that had been furnished three years ago to Osama bin Laden's voluntary Arab brigades in Afghanistan.=20 In August, 2001, the US agencies held an urgent meeting with their = French counterparts and required minutely exact information from Algerian = islamic militants, but quite strangely the US top officers refused to disclose = the outlines of what they looked for (les Am=E9ricains opposent un mutisme difficilement compr=E9hensible). Furthermore: "According to = different Arabian diplomatic sources and to the French information services, = quite precise intelligence was communicated to the CIA about the terrorist attacks against American interests in the world, "comprising the = Union's territory" in September, 7 --Le Figaro doesn't say if by _Union_ = it refers to the European Union or to the United States . The full text in French of these news is transcribed below. The second Le Figaro news --under the headline "A =ABmonster=BB = created by the American services"-- mention the creation of the Osama bin Laden's ring with the help of the CIA, of the Saudi information services and of = the billionaire Adnan Kashoggi. Funds were then freely collected at the mosques in USA. Le Figaro adds: "=ABCIA created a monster whose = control it has eventually lost=BB, as it was already predicted several years = ago by Daoud Mir, the former Afghan _charg=E9 d'affaires_ in Paris." The = second news may be found at: http://www.lefigaro.fr/cgi-bin/gx.cgi/AppLogic+FTContentServer?pagename=3D= Futu reTense/Apps/Xcelerate/View&c=3DfigArticle&cid=3DFIGINRRVETC&live=3Dtrue= &Site=3Dtrue &gCurChannel=3DZZZJTGN6J7C&gCurRubrique=3DZZZ4GPM6J7C&gCurSubRubrique=3D= ZZZ6YQM6J7C The third news refer to the Washington Post Monday edition (Oct., 29). = It deals with the 20 secret meetings (at least) in the latest three = years, up to a few days before the WTC bombing, between the Talibans and the = US government in order to get Osama bin Laden extradicted to the United States. See the following URL: http://www.lefigaro.fr/cgi-bin/gx.cgi/AppLogic+FTContentServer?pagename=3D= Futu reTense/Apps/Xcelerate/View&c=3DfigArticle&cid=3DFIGAMRRVETC&live=3Dtrue= &Site=3Dtrue &gCurChannel=3DZZZJTGN6J7C&gCurRubrique=3DZZZ4GPM6J7C&gCurSubRubrique=3D= ZZZ6YQM6J7C Le Monde, another well known French daily newspaper, published on = October 23 an extensive article about the Islamic extremism in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Estimates of foreigners coming from everywhere in the = Muslim world range up to 25,000. From 1992 on many foreign _moudjahidins_ (holy warriors) were enlisted in the former 7th brigade of the Bosnian Army, including war criminals (3,000 to 5,000 _moudjahidins_ ). They were allowed to enter the country during the civil war by the former Bosnian Muslim leader Alija Izetbegovic, also an ally of USA in the dismemberment of Yugoslavia. A part of them obtained Bosnian = nationality. Richard Holbrooke, the US negotiator of the 1995 Dayton agreements, = named it a "pact with the devil".=20 Many _humanitarian_ Islamic NGOs are quite actively woking in the country, including those which keep relations with the Osama bin = Laden's ring, as the Saudi High Commission, or the Sudan-based TWRA -- Third = World Relief Agency, that is a cover for weapons smuggling. It is also = related to sheikh Omar Abdel Rahmane, the mastermind behind the 1993 World = Trade Center bombing. According to a non-identified member of the government, the aid of the Arabian countries=20 to the tiny Bosnia and Herzegovina amounted to 1,5 billion dollars = along the past five years, what means 25% of the total foreign aid to that country. Nevertheless, almost all the resources thus obtained have = been used to promote Islam, to build new mosques, to keep koranic schools = and to publish religious literarture. The full text of the article may be found at http://www.lemonde.fr/article/0,5987,3230--236116-,00.html In solidarity, R. Magellan ########################################### http://www.lefigaro.fr/cgi-bin/gx.cgi/AppLogic+FTContentServer?pagename=3D= Futu reTense/Apps/Xcelerate/View&c=3DfigArticle&cid=3DFIGJMSRVETC&live=3Dtrue= &Site=3Dtrue &gCurChannel=3DZZZJTGN6J7C&gCurRubrique=3DZZZ4GPM6J7C&gCurSubRubrique=3D= LE FIGARO Alexandra Richard Publi=E9 le 31 octobre 2001,=20 page 2 La CIA aurait rencontr=E9 Ben Laden en juillet L'ennemi public num=E9ro un aurait =E9t=E9 soign=E9 dans = l'h=F4pital=20 am=E9ricain de Duba=EF au d=E9but de l'=E9t=E9 pour de graves=20 insuffisances r=E9nales. Durant son s=E9jour de 15 jours, le=20 milliardaire saoudien aurait re=E7u la visite d'un repr=E9sentant=20 local de la CIA. Cet agent aurait m=EAme =E9t=E9 inform=E9 sur=20 d'=E9ventuels attentats. Duba=EF, l'un des sept =E9mirats de la f=E9d=E9ration des Emirats=20 arabes unis, au nord-est d'Abu Dhabi. Cette ville de 350 000=20 habitants a =E9t=E9 le th=E9=E2tre discret d'une rencontre = secr=E8te entre=20 Oussama ben Laden et le repr=E9sentant de la CIA sur place, en=20 juillet. Un homme, partenaire professionnel de la direction=20 administrative de l'h=F4pital am=E9ricain de Duba=EF, affirme que=20 l'ennemi public num=E9ro un a s=E9journ=E9 dans cet = =E9tablissement=20 hospitalier du 4 au 14 juillet. En provenance de l'a=E9roport de Quetta au Pakistan, Oussama=20 ben Laden a =E9t=E9 transf=E9r=E9 d=E8s son arriv=E9e =E0 Duba=EF = Airport.=20 Accompagn=E9 de son m=E9decin personnel et fid=E8le lieutenant,=20 qui pourrait =EAtre l'=C9gyptien Ayman al-Zawahari - sur ce point=20 les t=E9moignages ne sont pas formels -, de quatre gardes du=20 corps, ainsi que d'un infirmier alg=E9rien, Ben Laden a =E9t=E9 = admis=20 =E0 l'h=F4pital am=E9ricain, un b=E2timent de verre et de marbre = situ=E9=20 entre Al-Garhoud Bridge et Al-Maktoum Bridge. Chaque =E9tage comporte deux suites =ABVIP=BB et une quinzaine=20 de chambres. Le milliardaire saoudien a =E9t=E9 admis dans le = tr=E8s=20 r=E9put=E9 d=E9partement d'urologie du docteur Terry Callaway,=20 sp=E9cialiste des calculs r=E9naux et de l'infertilit=E9 = masculine. Joint=20 par t=E9l=E9phone =E0 de multiples reprises, le docteur Callaway = n'a=20 pas souhait=E9 r=E9pondre =E0 nos questions. En mars 2000 d=E9j=E0, l'hebdomadaire Asia Week publi=E9 =E0=20 Hongkong s'inqui=E9tait de la sant=E9 de Ben Laden, faisant =E9tat = d'un grave probl=E8me physique pr=E9cisant que ses jours =E9taient = en danger =E0 cause d'une =ABinfection r=E9nale qui se propage au=20 foie et n=E9cessite des soins sp=E9cialis=E9s=BB. Selon des = sources=20 autoris=E9es, Ben Laden se serait fait livrer dans son repaire=20 afghan de Kandahar l'ensemble d'un mat=E9riel mobile de=20 dialyse au cours du premier semestre 2000. Selon nos=20 sources, le =ABd=E9placement pour raison de sant=E9 de Ben=20 Laden=BB n'est pas le premier. Entre 1996 et 1998, Oussama=20 ben Laden s'est rendu plusieurs fois =E0 Duba=EF pour ses=20 affaires. Le 27 septembre, quinze jours apr=E8s les attentats du World=20 Trade Center, sur demande am=E9ricaine, la Banque centrale=20 des Emirats arabes unis a annonc=E9 avoir ordonn=E9 le gel des=20 comptes et des investissements de 26 personnes ou=20 organisations soup=E7onn=E9es d'entretenir des contacts avec=20 l'organisation de Ben Laden, notamment aupr=E8s de la Duba=EF=20 Islamic Bank. =ABLes rapports entre l'Emirat et l'Arabie Saoudite ont=20 toujours =E9t=E9 tr=E8s =E9troits, expliquent nos sources, les = princes=20 des familles r=E9gnantes qui avaient reconnu le r=E9gime des=20 talibans se rendaient souvent en Afghanistan. Un des=20 princes d'une famille r=E9gnante participait r=E9guli=E8rement =E0 = des chasses sur les terres de Ben Laden qu'il connaissait et=20 fr=E9quentait depuis de nombreuses ann=E9es.=BB Une liaison=20 a=E9rienne entre Duba=EF et Quetta est d'ailleurs quotidiennement=20 assur=E9e par les compagnies Pakistan Airlines et Emirates.=20 Quant aux avions priv=E9s =E9miratis ou saoudiens, ils desservent=20 fr=E9quemment Quetta o=F9 ils ne sont la plupart du temps ni=20 enregistr=E9 ni consign=E9 dans les registres de l'a=E9roport. Durant son hospitalisation, Oussama ben Laden a re=E7u la=20 visite de plusieurs membres de sa famille, de personnalit=E9s=20 saoudiennes et =E9miraties. Au cours de ce m=EAme s=E9jour, le=20 repr=E9sentant local de la CIA, que beaucoup de gens=20 connaissent =E0 Duba=EF, a =E9t=E9 vu empruntant l'ascenseur=20 principal de l'h=F4pital pour se rendre dans la chambre=20 d'Oussama ben Laden. Quelques jours plus tard, l'homme de la CIA se vante devant=20 quelques amis d'avoir rendu visite au milliardaire saoudien. De=20 sources autoris=E9es, l'agent de la CIA a =E9t=E9 rappel=E9 par sa = centrale le 15 juillet, au lendemain du d=E9part de Ben Laden=20 pour Quetta. A la fin juillet, les douaniers =E9miratis arr=EAtent =E0 = l'a=E9roport de=20 Duba=EF un activiste islamiste franco-alg=E9rien, Djamel Beghal.=20 D=E9but ao=FBt, les autorit=E9s fran=E7aises et am=E9ricaines sont = alert=E9es. Interrog=E9 par les autorit=E9s locales =E0 Abu Dhabi, = Beghal raconte qu'il a =E9t=E9 convoqu=E9 en Afghanistan fin 2000=20 par Abou Zoubeida - un responsable militaire de=20 l'organisation de Ben Laden, Al Quaida. La mission de=20 Beghal: faire sauter l'ambassade des Etats-Unis, avenue=20 Gabriel, pr=E8s de la place de la Concorde, =E0 son retour en=20 France. Selon diff=E9rentes sources diplomatiques arabes et les services=20 de renseignements fran=E7ais eux-m=EAmes, des informations tr=E8s=20 pr=E9cises ont =E9t=E9 communiqu=E9es =E0 la CIA concernant des=20 attaques terroristes visant les int=E9r=EAts am=E9ricains dans le=20 monde, y compris sur le territoire de l'Union. Un rapport de la DST dat=E9 du 7 septembre rassemble la=20 totalit=E9 de ces donn=E9es, pr=E9cisant que l'ordre d'agir devait = venir d'Afghanistan.=20 En ao=FBt, =E0 l'ambassade des Etats-Unis =E0 Paris, une r=E9union = d'urgence est convoqu=E9e avec la DGSE et les plus hauts=20 responsables des services am=E9ricains. Extr=EAmement inquiets,=20 ces derniers pr=E9sentent =E0 leurs homologues fran=E7ais des=20 demandes de renseignements tr=E8s pr=E9cises concernant des=20 activistes alg=E9riens, sans toutefois s'expliquer sur le sens=20 g=E9n=E9ral de leur d=E9marche. A la question =ABque craignez-vous = dans les jours qui viennent?=BB, les Am=E9ricains opposent un=20 mutisme difficilement compr=E9hensible. Les contacts entre la CIA et Ben Laden remontent =E0 1979=20 lorsque, repr=E9sentant de la soci=E9t=E9 familiale =E0 Istanbul, = il=20 commen=E7a =E0 enr=F4ler des volontaires du monde=20 arabo-musulman pour la r=E9sistance afghane contre l'Arm=E9e=20 rouge. Enqu=EAtant sur les attentats d'ao=FBt 1998 contre les=20 ambassades am=E9ricaines de Nairobi (Kenya) et de=20 Dares-Salaam (Tanzanie), les enqu=EAteurs du FBI ont=20 d=E9couvert que les traces laiss=E9es par les charges proviennent=20 d'un explosif militaire de l'arm=E9e am=E9ricaine et que cet=20 explosif a =E9t=E9 livr=E9 trois ans auparavant =E0 des Afghans = arabes,=20 les fameuses brigades internationales de volontaires, engag=E9s=20 au c=F4t=E9 d'Oussama ben Laden durant la guerre d'Afghanistan=20 contre l'arm=E9e sovi=E9tique. Poursuivant ses investigations, le FBI d=E9couvre des=20 =ABmontages=BB que la CIA avait d=E9velopp=E9s avec ses =ABamis=20 islamistes=BB depuis des ann=E9es. La rencontre de Duba=EF ne=20 serait donc que la suite logique d'une =ABcertaine politique=20 am=E9ricaine=BB End of A-List Digest From a-list-admin at lists.econ.utah.edu Thu Nov 1 20:02:03 2001 From: a-list-admin at lists.econ.utah.edu (a-list-admin@lists.econ.utah.edu) Date: Sat Jul 8 08:08:22 2006 Subject: [A-List] capital employers v. finance capitalists? Message-ID: November 1, 2001 Wall Street Stunned by Treasury's Action on Long-Term Bonds By GRETCHEN MORGENSON With fears mounting that nine interest rate cuts in almost as many months may not be enough to rev up the United States economy, the Treasury Department added some high-test yesterday to the Federal Reserve's fuel mix. Unfortunately, Wall Street got run over in the process. Treasury officials said that their decision to halt the issuance of 30-year bonds was intended to save the government money. But traders scoffed at that explanation, viewing the move as an almost desperate effort to push down long-term interest rates, which had remained stubbornly high, and prod both corporate and individual borrowers to spend again. "Without a doubt the thing that the Fed really wants to do is get mortgage rates and corporate rates down," said Peter McTeague, government bond market strategist at Greenwich Capital Markets, a brokerage firm in Greenwich, Conn. "But mortgage rates weren't falling as much as people hoped because they are more driven by the long end of the yield curve. So they're trying every little trick in the basket. If the Fed funds rate isn't going to do it, let's see if we can do something else." The predicament for the Fed has been that even as it slashed interest rates from 6.5 percent at the beginning of the year to 2.5 percent last month, longer-term borrowing costs for corporations and individuals had not fallen as hard. For example, yields on the 10-year note, the benchmark for many mortgage rates and corporate bond issues, began the year at 5.1 percent and fell only to 4.5 percent by the time the Fed lowered rates for the ninth time on Oct. 2. By last week, 10- year yields had actually risen to 4.64 percent. Yields on the 30-year bond rose even as the Fed cut short-term rates. Starting the year at 5.45 percent, yields on the long bond hit 5.9 percent in May. In an interview yesterday, Peter Fisher, the Treasury's undersecretary for domestic finance, said that "today's decision is in no way an attempt to manage long-term interest rates. That is not what motivated us." But there is no doubt that the sticky nature of longer-term rates has exasperated policy makers. This is especially the case with mortgage rates, since consumer spending has been the only prop supporting the economy in recent months. Keeping consumers feeling flush has, therefore, become a top priority. One way to do this is by lowering mortgage rates, encouraging people to refinance their home loans and put more money in their pockets. The case may have become even more compelling after the report on Tuesday of a plunge in consumer confidence and other recent reports that home buying has started to slip. While mortgage refinancing activity has soared since Sept. 11, the Mortgage Bankers Association's index of home buying activity has instead stumbled. Existing home sales dropped 5.2 percent in September from a year earlier and 11.7 percent from August. But the plunge yesterday in yields on government securities will bring mortgage rates down significantly and soon. The Treasury's announcement stunned Wall Street firms. To be sure, the government had been reducing the amount of long-term bonds in the market by buying back issues periodically and not issuing new ones. But traders had come to believe that because the federal budget surpluses have all but vanished, the government would have to resume heavy borrowings to finance deficit spending. And the Treasury gave Wall Street none of the usual warning signs that come in the form of trial balloons floated before a policy shift as big as this one. When Treasury prices surged on the news of the bond's demise, most major brokerage firms were caught with significant losses. Investors rushed to buy soon-to-be extinct issues. Prices of long-term bonds soared, and their yields plunged, falling from 5.21 percent on Tuesday to 4.88 percent yesterday. It was the biggest single-day move since investors fled to the safety of government securities during the stock market crash of 1987. Traders who had sold long-term Treasuries short to hedge their holdings in corporate bonds and mortgage-backed securities got crushed. "This was a complete blind siding," one trader said. "They would have accomplished the same thing just by signaling it. But they decide not to signal it, and everybody on the Street got slammed." From a-list-admin at lists.econ.utah.edu Fri Nov 2 01:27:03 2001 From: a-list-admin at lists.econ.utah.edu (a-list-admin@lists.econ.utah.edu) Date: Sat Jul 8 08:08:22 2006 Subject: AW: [A-List] Israeli "intelligence" Message-ID: <4FC0BEA08BA4D51188F20002A5291B2617E523@MAILIX07> Dear Ian- I find your comments, frankly, out of touch with reality. The article is interesting and makes a lot of sense. Rule number one (I tell you this as a former diplomat) - keep your eyes open on all sides, and disregard no information whatsoever, out of ideological reasons! Kind regards Arno Tausch -----Urspr?ngliche Nachricht----- Von: a-list-admin@lists.econ.utah.edu [mailto:a-list-admin@lists.econ.utah.edu] Gesendet: Mittwoch, 31. Oktober 2001 13:40 An: A-List (E-mail) Betreff: [A-List] Israeli "intelligence" News direct from Paul Wolfowitz's man in Scotland. Only the Israelis could come up with a scheme that links together all *their* enemies in one huge dastardly plot. And in whose interest is it for Pakistan's "shadowy ISI" to "establish" links between Iraq and al-Qaeda? Since when was the ISI a reliable source? Israeli intelligence warned US days before attacks IAN BRUCE The Herald, 31 October 2001 ISRAEL'S military intelligence service, Aman, issued an urgent warning of an impending terrorist "spectacular" against America, several days before the suicide bombers flew passenger airliners into New York's Trade Towers and the Pentagon on September 11. Aman had no details of the targets, but picked up enough indicators of major terrorist activity from a combination of informants and electronic eavesdropping to send out an alert, which also covered US interests in Britain, France and Germany. Much of the Israeli intelligence centred on Imad Mughniyeh, head of the Iranian-backed Hizbollah movement's foreign operations section, and on Dr Ayman Al Zawahiri, the Egyptian-born terrorist mastermind reputed to be Osama bin Laden's chosen successor. The Israelis say they have evidence linking both men to agents representing SSO, Iraq's foreign intelligence service, and believe Baghdad has provided finance and logistical support to them. Links between the terrorist network and Iraq have been established by Pakistan's shadowy ISI agency and by the Czech Republic's counter-intelligence service. Salah Suleiman, an Iraqi SSO agent, was detained on the Pakistan border last October after a series of trips into Taliban-controlled territory to meet bin Laden. After interrogation, he was deported. Iraqi agent, Ahmad Khalil Ibrahim Samir Al-Ani, has been expelled by the Czechs for "conduct incompatible with his diplomatic status". They had been monitoring his activities after a tip-off from Israel that he was planning to bomb Radio Free Europe, a station financed by the CIA that broadcasts to Iraq and Iran. Baghdad regards the broadcasts as "an act of aggression". During the surveillance, they photographed Al-Ani with Mohammed Atta, the al Qaeda agent believed to have flown the first plane into the World Trade Centre. Full article at: http://www.theherald.co.uk/news/archive/31-10-19101-0-24-15.html From a-list-admin at lists.econ.utah.edu Fri Nov 2 02:27:03 2001 From: a-list-admin at lists.econ.utah.edu (a-list-admin@lists.econ.utah.edu) Date: Sat Jul 8 08:08:22 2006 Subject: [A-List] Israeli "intelligence" Message-ID: Arno Tausch writes: Dear Ian- I find your comments, frankly, out of touch with reality. The article is interesting and makes a lot of sense. Rule number one (I tell you this as a former diplomat) - keep your eyes open on all sides, and disregard no information whatsoever, out of ideological reasons! ===== Actually these were my comments but with the listserver apparently processing all mails without registering the original sender some clarity has been lost. My comments re Ian Bruce's article are based on a continuing surveillance of his very interesting and peculiar output in the provincial newspaper, The Herald, published in Glasgow, Scotland. For such a provincial newspaper journalist, he appears to be well-connected, if not so well-informed. Or should that be disinformed? My scepticism regarding his output is based on a succession of gung-ho articles he has published which, to be frank, are downright racist in their depiction of those whom our leaders are bombing with impunity. I can forward these articles to the list, and will be forwarding his articles in future anyway, for the purposes of further scrutiny. They reveal as much of what the establishment would like us to believe as they do of whatever is really happening on the ground. I don't disregard information for ideological reasons -- I am acutely aware of the strong possibility for disinformation being disseminated for ideological reasons. Bruce is only one in an endless stream of British journalists whose connections to the UK intelligence services are legion. Below is a post I forwarded to PEN-L in response to some queries regarding the Guardian newspaper, whose image as a liberal/left standard-bearer is belied by its historical and current role in the evolution of the British state. Posted to PEN-L on 3 October: Jim D. reasonably asks: Michael, shouldn't it be basic that we should distrust all of the bourgeois media -- not just the GUARDIAN -- because they have clear bourgeois biases, including favoring the national security state, etc.? Even though the New York TIMES doesn't seem to be connected with the CIA, I am very careful with what I believe in their stories. ===== Yes, absolutely right. The UK press generally serves a much more unified "market" which can be segmented according to politics and again according to presumed degree of affluence/education, giving highbrow rightwing crap, middlebrow rightwing crap, lowbrow, etc. The Guardian has traditionally occupied the "left", and has been put to use in various ways over the last 30 years, not least in helping to hobble Wilson/Callaghan/Foot Labour, supporting the breakaway Gaitskellite successor SDP, and ushering in the New Labour ascendancy. An analogous job to the dishing Labour from the left tactic is being accomplished now by the Daily Telegraph, which is more likely to complain of the Conservative Party selling out, and thus support every idiot punk Thatcherite who declares loyalty to the cause. A while back I deliberately inserted the mischievous little paragraph from Private Eye noting Telegraph editor Charles Moore's sighted exit from MI5 HQ. Given Britain's smaller size and historically more unified news media space, it's a very cosy club indeed. This means all newspapers are ripe for manipulation, overt and covert. It also means that information, however partial or distorted, can inadvertently leak out from time to time, especially when different branches of the secret state are conducting their own turf wars, as with the long tussle between MI5 and MI6, and even between different "wings" of MI5 itself. I suppose picking on the Guardian goes back to a point raised by Michael P. back in March/April or thereabouts, when he queried why it was that a significant proportion of forwarded news articles are from the Guardian. This got us into the merits of that specific paper, and on to Mark Jones' point about the historic relationship between the Guardian and the intelligence services, followed by Michael Pugliese's interventions, followed by my own research into the British state following the IMF UK 1976 episode, etc. There are people here who are on record as praising the reliability of the Guardian, and it maybe needs to be reiterated just how questionable that particular source really is, for all its housing of worthy social democrats over the years(e.g. Roy Hattersley), and even the odd radical (Paul Foot, Mark Steel - now at the Independent, Gary Younge, Seumas Milne). There are still plenty of Polly Toynbees, Jonathan Freedlands, Martin Kettles, Peter Prestons, Matthew Engels to keep the liberal intelligentsia happy. (But far better is the Tory Geoffrey Wheatcroft.) The image of the Guardian as hammer of the right is helped by its recent history of bringing down various Conservative Party Ministers, including Neil Hamilton and Jonathan Aitken. But the related point made by Mark Jones regarding the realignment of the permanent government towards New Labour and away from the increasingly unstable and unpredictable Conservatives, riven with factions and infighting thanks to the punk Thatcherites, adds a different gloss to the apparently laudable conduct of the Guardian as a haven of campaigning journalism. The Guardian also got in on the "stop Portillo" campaign, playing a bit part to the major roles taken by both Telegraph titles, whose own contributions were so clearly orchestrated to produce a wholly predictable outcome (Thatcher denying all support for Portillo just prior to the crucial MPs' vote) show that security service mischief-making is far from over in the British news media. You continue: BTW, traditionally the CIA was the "liberal" spy agency in the US (compared to the FBI). Its agents were sophisticated Ivy League types who hobnobbed with (and corrupted) liberals, social democrats, and laborites. The CIA traditionally embraced a more long-term and "enlightened" perspective than the FBI. Is the MI5 the same way? If so, one can learn something from them (and their allies in the media) while being extremely careful not to believe everything they say. ===== There is no doubt that MI5 has housed some seriously reactionary types over the years, too extreme even for many colleagues. MI6 has its own horrible history, laid out in detail by Stephen Dorril in his recent book, but, yes, if one can make comparisons then MI6 would be analogous to your characterisation of the CIA. Particularly in Northern Ireland, MI6 comes out rather well compared to the ruthlessness which characterised MI5 operations there, and which contributed to many civilian deaths and subverted whatever minimal norms of bourgeois liberal democracy remained. As Peter Taylor revealed in his "Brits" series and book, it was via MI6 that Mrs Thatcher broke her vow and "talked to terrorists". Meanwhile army types were horrified at what MI5 were getting up to. Some of this is revealed in both the David Leigh and Dorril/Ramsay books on the Wilson plots. There is also a much longer, detailed study by Paul Foot, "Who Framed Colin Wallace?", Wallace being an army information officer who was being fed all sorts of smears regarding Wilson, but whose uncovering of an establishment paedophile ring led to him being framed for manslaughter and jailed. It gets more complicated when someone like Foot, for example, who has no truck with the British state, can be relied upon to indulge his sectarian tastes by rubbishing e.g. Arthur Scargill, whose limitations are apparent to many on the left but whose pariah status on the right means that leftists' disaffections can be exploited, as with the attempt by Robert Maxwell and Roger Cook in 1990 to frame Scargill and Peter Heathfield for the misuse of NUM funds and the pocketing of large sums of Soviet miners' money sent to help striking British miners. Thus, to answer your question, I think it's a mixture of instinct, historical knowledge, cross-checking and inspired guesswork. An important question to answer is, "whose purposes are served by this reporting?" The advantage of a forum like this is that the latter particularly can be tested and others who are informed on related and similar matters can add to the common understanding. Marx's notion of determinations is useful here, given all the subtexts encountered in some of the topics we have focused on in recent times, whether on the IMF in Britain, the marginalisation of punk Thatcherism, the ascendancy of New Labour, etc. Not to mention the rather more global role performed by the Financial Times in its campaign against James Wolfensohn. In closing, you ask: BTW2, what is PRIVATE EYE's connection with the intelligence goons? ===== That's an intriguing one. I tried to cover that in my review of David Leigh's book, noting the relationship of certain individual staff members to the state (Auberon Waugh, Patrick Marnham, e.g.) and their toleration by editor Richard Ingrams whose own sympathy towards Thatcherism and loathing of Harold Wilson significantly skewed the content of the magazine, and led to the departure of people like Paul Foot and the noticeable reduction of commitment by other founders like Willie Rushton and John Wells, who were unhappy with the rather one-sided nature of the satire being employed. In certain respects the latterday Ingrams Eye looked like a comic book version of the Spectator. Under Ian Hislop's editorship, it's become a more equal opportunities satirist again, and Rushton and Wells returned, as did Paul Foot, to be joined by Francis Wheen, while old hacks like Peter Mackay, Nigel Dempster and Patrick Marnham were booted out. Meanwhile former owner Peter Cook encouraged Hislop to develop the investigative reporting side of the magazine. I think there is a generally healthy distrust of state and corporate power displayed in most of the magazine's contents. That attitude can, of course, be exploited by some in the intelligence services to score tactical points. To be independent of the goons does not immunise one from their manipulations. But I would reckon that the Eye's head and heart are generally in the right place, as concern state and corporate power at least. On the basis of current evidence, anyway. Michael K. ===== This does not explain the role of a provincial newspaper like the Herald. Until recently the Glasgow Herald, the paper serves a readership concentrated mostly in the west of Scotland, for obvious reasons. Intelligence angst about Scottish separatism, close links with Ireland/Northern Ireland, and now a large Pakistani emigre population would provide sufficient rationale for spooks to get busy. And busy they are. What I cannot understand is the point of Bruce's very provocative disquisitions on the "character" of the Afghan people -- just who is supposed to be impressed by that? Certainly not the large Pakistani community, which, incidentally, in my experience, was never enthusiastic about the "Islamic" ideas of General Zia (the US stooge who came to power via a bloody coup in 1977, paving the way for Brzezinski-inspired destabilisation of the Soviet-backed regime in Kabul). Of course "provincial" newspapers, like foreign ones, however obscure, can be used in a technique known as "surfacing", where information comes to light in a faraway place and can then be relayed back to the intended audience under cover of simply reporting what others have been saying. Hence the career of Colin Wallace, British Army Information Officer serving in Northern Ireland in the early 1970s who was being fed lots of whacked out smears concerning Harold Wilson by the goons of MI5. Another feature of recent times has been the laments regarding the lack of "expertise" on Afghanistan and the Middle East generally. The CIA and allied agencies have been caught short because they have not engaged in the same levels of infiltration, subversion, etc., that they did under the Cold War. Better to sub-contract these activities to darker-skinned types who can live the alcohol-free, celibate and rough lifestyle necessary. The KGB had the good taste to lay on all kinds of tasty entrapments for our agents, after all. No such pickings in Kandahar. Thus which sub-contractor has been using this arrangement for its own benefit? Probably all of them, but certainly Israeli intelligence which, as the closest ally to the US, is in the best position to influence and manipulate according to its prerogatives. One need only see the energetic performances of Ehud Barak in the world media in recent months, talking about "terrorism" in such terms as to mirror the monochrome treatments routinely served up by Mossad et al. So, I am certainly open to considering evidence that backs up the tale being peddled by Mr Bruce. But I have to see it first. Meanwhile I've got plenty that suggests Mr Bruce is simply the current incarnation of Chapman Pincher, long a reliable establishment urinal (to use E.P. Thompson's wonderfully accurate description) whereby fragments of fact are deposited along with judicious helpings of disinformation, mischief and smear. Our job here is to evaluate what gets passed off as reportage and distil the urine accordingly. Michael Keaney From a-list-admin at lists.econ.utah.edu Fri Nov 2 03:32:03 2001 From: a-list-admin at lists.econ.utah.edu (a-list-admin@lists.econ.utah.edu) Date: Sat Jul 8 08:08:22 2006 Subject: [A-List] Strategy of tension Message-ID: It's no wonder our leaders worry about "dirty" bombs. They and their predecessors have manufactured most of them, and have had plenty of time to study the results of using depleted uranium ordnance in both Iraq and Kosovo. Anthrax having served its purpose, now we can ratchet up the tension with some alarmism about suitcase bombs. BTW, has anyone here ever seen the Sean Connery 1982 movie, "Wrong is Right", titled "The Man with the Deadly Lens" in Britain? It's uncannily close to what is going on now. Supposedly a satire on the relationship between US news media and politics, it centres on events in a fictional North African state whereby the CIA engineers the assassination of the "moderate" king in order to stop a possible alliance with the "extremists" who have been fighting a civil war against him until now. Then it's a question of how the US president can legitimately declare war on that country without losing face (and an election, more importantly) because of being uncovered as the assassin in the first place (a corner engineered for him by the CIA). This is achieved by the "discovery" and disarming of two suitcase atom bombs hanging from a flagpole in New York. War is declared, and the president wins the election. If you find a copy in the rental store, check it out. If anything it's more believable than anything you're likely to be told by Donald Rumsfeld. Not that this would be difficult, of course. ===== West fears terrorist 'dirty' bomb IAN BRUCE The Herald, 2 November 2001 THE ultimate nightmare for security services throughout the West is a terrorist "dirty" bomb made from high-grade nuclear waste packed around home-made explosives. Packed in the back of a van parked on the top storey of a high-rise car park in a city centre, it could inflict tens of thousands of casualties, some a generation away from the initial blast as a result of cancers and birth defects. The worst-case scenario, depending on wind speed and direction, power of the blast and materials used, could render parts of a city uninhabitable for the next century or two. All of it would be contingent on whether or not it rained within hours of the detonation. A decent shower would bring the most damaging radioactive particles rapidly to earth and limit the worst of the contamination. The Royal Navy's Clyde submarine base was established on the principle of "Faslane weather", an anchorage where it rained on a daily basis more often than not. It was a major unstated factor in the selection of Faslane as the home port for Britain's nuc-lear deterrent force. While there was virtually no risk of an atomic explosion, the average rainfall would, hopefully, diminish the aftermath of an accidental release of radioactive material. The fact that it also gave a ready access to the sea for Polaris missile boats was a bonus. Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda terrorist network has been actively seeking nuclear capability since the early 1990s. Its first attempts focused on the purchase of a ready-made warhead in the chaos of the Soviet Union's fragmentation. Even Moscow is still unsure whether it has a full inventory of the atomic weapons it deployed in the tens of thousands during the Cold War. There are unsubstantiated rumours that al Qaeda managed to buy two "backpack" nuclear demolition charges, weapons designed to be used by the Spetznaz, the Soviet equivalent of the SAS, behind Nato lines in the 1980s. But intelligence sources say that, if bin Laden has the warheads, then he lacks the enabling codes to detonate them. If he had them, then he would have used one or both to destroy New York's Trade Towers instead of relying on a complex hijack plan and the nerve of kamikaze pilots. Far more alarming and pos-sible is the adaptation of relatively easily-available nuclear material to a makeshift "dirty" bomb. According to the International Atomic Energy Authority, there have been 175 cases of illegal trafficking in nuclear material, and 201 cases of trafficking in medical and industrial radio-active waste since 1993. Only 18 of these cases have involved small amounts of highly enriched uranium or plutonium, the basic component of nuclear weapons. But 13 have happened in the last year. It takes 50lbs of specially treated uranium or 18lbs of plutonium to form the core of a bomb, but the process to convert it from radioactive mass to a warhead and then deliver that warhead to a specific target, is beyond the means of most states, never mind terrorist organisations. The cheaper option is to obtain the most radioactive material which can be stolen or bought on the black market: the waste from the hundreds of nuclear power stations dotted around the world. With a few kilos of the mixed plutonium and uranium, or better still caesium-137, a substance more toxic than Ebola virus and more enduring than diamonds, the ultimate terrorist would have the lethal coating for his poor man's atomic bomb. Most terrorist groups have access to commercial or military plastic explosives. The IRA used to make its bigger vehicle bombs from "Co-op mix", a combination of weedkiller, sugar, diesel, and various other ingredients found in most kitchens and garden huts. The trick with a dirty nuclear release is to trigger it upwind of the target area on a day when the breeze will spread the contamination as widely as possible. The accidental reactor meltdown and release of a windblown plume at Chernobyl in 1986 polluted almost 3000 square miles of the Ukraine and deposited dangerous levels of radioactivity across most of northern and western Europe. There have been 11,000 admitted cases of thyroid cancer in Ukraine and Belarus alone since then. Sheep in Wales are still being checked quietly for contamination, 15 years after the event. Full article at: http://www.theherald.co.uk/news/archive/2-11-19101-0-49-12.html Michael Keaney Mercuria Business School Martinlaaksontie 36 01620 Vantaa Finland michael.keaney@mbs.fi From a-list-admin at lists.econ.utah.edu Fri Nov 2 03:34:03 2001 From: a-list-admin at lists.econ.utah.edu (a-list-admin@lists.econ.utah.edu) Date: Sat Jul 8 08:08:22 2006 Subject: [A-List] Strategy of tension Message-ID: UK nuclear plants may be next for kamikaze jet attacks IAN BRUCE The Herald, 2 November 2001 THE crashing of a hijacked passenger jet into Sellafield nuclear plant on the Cumbrian coast, could release 44 times more lethal radiation than the 1986 Chernobyl disaster in the Ukraine. Gordon Thompson, executive director of the US Institute for Resource and Security Studies in Massachusetts, says such an incident would send a plume of deadly particles into the atmosphere, and certainly contaminate much of Britain and Ireland. Depending on wind direction and speed, the plume might spread over much of the near-continent, causing two million cancer cases in the next 50 years. British Energy, the East Kilbride-based body that supervises the UK's seven gas-cooledatomic power stations, dismissed Mr Thompson's claims as "alarmist". But he was backed by Mohamed El Baradei, director-general of the International Atomic Energy Authority, the UN watchdog authority that regulates safety standards for the nuclear industry. He said targeting nuclear facilities to cause "a Chernobyl-style disaster" was the most probable choice for terrorist groups hoping to "incite panic, contaminate property, and inflict death and injury among civilians." The path of the PanAm plane blown up by a bomb over Lockerbie in 1988 was a few moments' flight time from Sellafield. Full article: http://www.theherald.co.uk/news/archive/2-11-19101-0-48-27.html NOTE: Both Syria and Iran were in the frame for the Lockerbie bombing, until their support for Desert Storm in 1991 was required. Colonel Gaddafi was wheeled out to serve as whipping boy on that occasion. Michael Keaney Mercuria Business School Martinlaaksontie 36 01620 Vantaa Finland michael.keaney@mbs.fi From a-list-admin at lists.econ.utah.edu Fri Nov 2 03:37:03 2001 From: a-list-admin at lists.econ.utah.edu (a-list-admin@lists.econ.utah.edu) Date: Sat Jul 8 08:08:22 2006 Subject: [A-List] Strategy of tension Message-ID: Of course the unintended consequences of scare campaigns include workers acting in their self-interest, not just government officials and business leaders. ===== Postal staff in walkout ANNETTE McCANN The Herald, 2 November 2001 POSTAL workers in Edinburgh staged a walkout yesterday after the wages of those who refused to return to work following a recent anthrax scare were deducted. John Keggie, the deputy general secretary of the Communications Workers' Union (CWU) condemned the situation as "irresponsible" given the pressures facing postal workers following the US terrorist attacks. Around 85 workers at the Brunswick Road delivery office were affected. The protest was staged between 6am and 8am, leading to delays to the morning deliveries in Leith. The CWU is calling for an inquiry and for disciplinary action to be taken against the management. But a Royal Mail spokesman said: "The staff involved in the walk-out were a group who refused to work normally after the building had been given the all-clear by the police." Full article at: http://www.theherald.co.uk/news/archive/2-11-19101-0-46-48.html Michael Keaney Mercuria Business School Martinlaaksontie 36 01620 Vantaa Finland michael.keaney@mbs.fi From a-list-admin at lists.econ.utah.edu Fri Nov 2 03:55:04 2001 From: a-list-admin at lists.econ.utah.edu (a-list-admin@lists.econ.utah.edu) Date: Sat Jul 8 08:08:22 2006 Subject: [A-List] Israeli "intelligence" In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.2.20011102104940.030b0608@pop.tiscali.co.uk> Michael Keaney wrote: >with the listserver apparently >processing all mails without registering the original sender some >clarity has been lost. This may be my fault. While attempting to make the archive more accessible I set the reply-to function to delete the original sender and haven't managed to correct it yet. Ho hum. Sign your emails is the best I can suggest right now. Mark From a-list-admin at lists.econ.utah.edu Fri Nov 2 04:23:03 2001 From: a-list-admin at lists.econ.utah.edu (a-list-admin@lists.econ.utah.edu) Date: Sat Jul 8 08:08:22 2006 Subject: [A-List] fwd: paper by Alexander N. Domrin on Russia Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.2.20011102111230.00a9eaf0@pop.tiscali.co.uk> Alexander N. Domrin1 Ten Years Later: Society, 'Civil Society' & the Russian State. Conference ?Ten Years Later: The Development of Russian Civil Society?, Wittenberg University, Springfield, OH, November 3, 2001. I. Grazhdanskoe obschestvo (civil society) is becoming a new mantra of the Russian government and the political elite in general. The term is widely used in Russian political lexicon today. A reference to ?creation of civil society? or its ?further development? is usually present in a typical set of arguments of Russian policy-makers endorsing certain political initiatives in the country. Work on ?developing structures of civil society in Russia? is regularly discussed during meetings of President Putin with leaders of parliamentary factions or with presidential envoys (as happened, for instance, on 28 June 2001 during Putin's meeting with envoys Petr Latyshev (Urals federal district) and Leonid Drachevskii (Siberian federal district))2. Even the creation of a coalition of two political parties - pro-Putin Edinstvo (Unity) and Primakov-Luzhkov's Otechestvo-Vsya Rossiya (Fatherland-All Russia) - was welcomed by President Putin for two main reasons: because it was expected to become an ?important step aimed at strengthening and developing the political system, and creating civil society?3. The number of registered public organizations in Russia has reached approximately 300,0004, including more than 70,000 social and noncommercial organizations, which are directly or indirectly involved in charitable work. Charity organizations unite about 2.5 million citizens providing assistance to about 30 million Russians5. Reportedly, the number of Russian regions that have formal cooperation arrangements with, for instance, groups working with orphans and the disabled, has risen from 12 (out of 89) in 1998 to 40 in 20016. Not by a coincidence, it was on 12 June 2001, a symbolic date in Russia's most recent history7 and an official Russia Day holiday, that President Putin held a meeting with representatives of wide-ranging (although far from being comprehensive) public organizations. All in all, the meeting in the Kremlin was attended by 28 NGOs, including the Association of Beekeepers, the Allotment Gardeners' Federation, the All-Russian Society of Stamp Collectors, as well as those uniting lawyers, invalids, journalists, consumers, ecologists and even bards. It was proposed to form a Civic Chamber attached to the Office of the President. The Chamber is expected to become an important component of the process of building a civil society and of development of grass-roots activities of population. Concrete preparations for creation of such Chamber are being made by Gleb Pavlovsky, a former dissident, ?political prisoner?, and now the head of a high-profile Foundation for Effective Policy, and Vladislav Surkov, a senior official of the presidential administration. It's expected that the Civic Chamber will be preceded by a certain Civic Forum (or a Union of the Civic NGOs), which is to be convened on November 16-17, 2001 with participation of more than 250 NGOs8. The current rapid intensification of dialogues of the Russian political elite and social scientists on civil society and problems of its evolution is not accidental. Yet another stunning defeat of radical ?reformers? in the Russian parliamentary elections in December 1999, and Putin's decisive victory in the presidential campaign in March 2000, are viewed by many observers as the end of ?revolutionary changes? in Russia9. In a popular expression, civil society is the point where revolution ends and routine (byt) of a democratic regime starts. In a certain way, the term grazhdanskoe obschestvo is following the pattern of the use of another concept more than ten years ago - pravovoe gosudarstvo (Russian equivalent of Rechtsstaat or ?law-governed state?, ?state based on the rule of law?). Indeed, ?civil society? is probably as often mentioned now as the words glasnost' (openness, transparency) or pravovoe gosudarstvo were used in the perestroika (restructuring, change, reform) period of the Soviet history in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Back in June of 1991, it was observed (in a report prepared for the U.S. Congressional Research Service), that ?voluntary or involuntary lack of consensus on the meaning of the rule of law, broad interpretation of the term, and attempts to use it in political demagogy as a populist tool lead to outright abuses of the concept?10. And just like perestroika itself has transformed in reality and public consciousness into katastroika (from ?catastrophe?)11, and the ?architect of perestroika?, Michail Gorbachev, deservedly enjoys the support of not more than 0.5 percent of the Russian electorate (who voted for him in the 1996 presidential elections), indiscriminate use of the term ?civil society? in Russian political doublespeak today can potentially lead to the same consequences tomorrow12. The more politicians speak about ?civil society?, the less meaningful it becomes. As an example, let's consider two official documents of the State Duma: Plan of ?Civil Society? Legislative Drafting 13 and Recommendations of Parliamentary Hearings ?Russian Federalism and Problems of Development of Civil Society?. The Plan of ?Civil Society? Legislative Drafting was adopted by the State Duma in the beginning of 1995 and contained titles of 31 bills. Besides bills aimed at regulating the establishment and activities of public associations (No.1) and charity organizations (No.2) or formulating ?General Principles of Organization of Local Government in the Russian Federation? (No.11), the list also included so different in their constitutional significance and scope of legal regulation draft acts as ?On Election of the RF President? (No.13), ?On Election of Deputies of the State Duma of the RF Federal Assembly? (No.12), ?On Referendum in RF? (No.14), ?On the RF Constitutional Assembly? (No.16), ?On Alternative Civil Service? (No.3), ?On Political Parties? (No.6), on the one hand, and ?On Distribution of Erotic Production? (No.30), ?On Prohibition of Propaganda of Fascism in RF? (No.26), ?On Protection of Linguistic, Cultural and Other Traditions in RF? (No.28), on the other hand. Similarly, parliamentary hearings at the Russian State Duma on ?Russian Federalism and Problems of Development of Civil Society? (15 November 1999) led to an adoption of three sets of ?recommendations? in various areas of social activities. In the area of scientific research, the participants in the hearings recommended Russian scholars, among other things, to concentrate on such eternal problems as ?humanism and federalism?, and on such vague topics as ?fusion of the energy of civil society with the policy of sustainable development?, ?federalism and civil consciousness of the Russian society?, or ?civil self-governing society - a condition of creation and development of real federalism in Russia?. In the sphere of information and mass media, it was advised to ?concentrate on the necessity of a productive dialogue between political parties, social movements and the state power, between the Center and regions aimed at reaching political consensus between them?, to introduce a special section ?Individual, Civil Society, Federalism in Russia? in a number of Russian scholarly magazines (Zhurnal rossiyskogo prava, Pravo i ekonomika, Svobodnaya mysl', Sotsiologicheskiye issledovaniya, Polis, Federalizm, etc.), to start a new talk show on TV called ?Civil Society and Federalism in Russia?. Apart from long-term and, to a large extent, hypothetical and detached from current Russian reality goals (such as creation of ?complex programs, federal and regional, aimed at developing and strengthening civil society?, or establishment of an ?institute for research in problems of civil society?), the third set of proposals (?in the legal and administrative sphere?) contained a short list of just six draft laws which, from the point of view of organizers of the conference and its participants, would assist Russia in moving closer to ?real federalism? and to ?strengthen civil society in our country at the contemporary stage?. The proposed bills included: ?On Responsibility of Officials for Violations of Civil Rights and Freedoms, Constitutional Foundations and Principles?; ?On Guaranteeing Consistency of Legal Acts of Subjects of the Russian Federation with the Federal Legislation?; ?On the Mechanism of Rendering Decisions of the RF Constitutional Court?; ?On the Mechanism of Recognizing Unconstitutional the Legal Acts of Subjects of the Russian Federation Contravening the Federal Legislation?; ?On Responsibility of Officials for Violations of Constitutional Rights of People?; ?On Information Safeguarding Citizens' Security?. The problem with that set of draft laws is that, despite the fact that it includes a very small number of titles, two of them basically repeat each other (bills ?On Responsibility of Officials for Violations of Civil Rights and Freedoms, Constitutional Foundations and Principles? and ?On Responsibility of Officials for Violations of Constitutional Rights of People?), and two others intend to regulate very close aspects of law and could probably be united in one (bills ?On Guaranteeing Consistency of Legal Acts of Subjects of the Russian Federation with the Federal Legislation? and ?On the Mechanism of Recognizing Unconstitutional the Legal Acts of Subjects of the Russian Federation Contravening the Federal Legislation?). It's hard to understand from the title of another bill (?On Information Safeguarding Citizens' Security?) what area of social relations it intends to regulate. In case of adoption of the last bill (?On the Mechanism of Rendering Decisions of the RF Constitutional Court?), the new act would most probably be eventually recognized violating the Russian Constitution. Indeed, if the activities of the RF Constitutional Court are regulated by a Federal Constitutional Law (?On the Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation? of 24 July 1994), the proposed ?mechanism of rendering decisions? of the Constitutional Court could, in principle, be introduced not by a regular parliamentary act, but only by another Constitutional Law. Yet, the Russian Constitution contains an exhaustive list of Federal Constitutional Laws (on referendum, on arbitration courts, on the Commissioner for Human Rights, on martial law, on a state of emergency, etc.), but the proposed act is not among them. Finally (and the most important in the context of this article), it's totally unclear what all those bills have in reality to do with civil society, and in what way their adoption, in the opinion of the law-makers, would contribute to development of civil society in Russia or its ?strengthening?. II. The concept of civil society has a longer history in transitional regimes of Central and Eastern Europe. Already in the late 1970s, the civil society doctrine was understood as a program of resistance to the Communist government in Poland. To a large extent, the ?velvet revolutions? themselves were ?carried out in the name of 'civil' society?14. Unlike in Central and Eastern Europe, where such terms as ?civil society?, ?citizen's committees?, ?citizen's assemblies?, ?citizen's initiatives?, etc. were the ?most frequently used terms in the public discourse of that time?15, revolutionary (in their essence) legal and political reforms were initiated at the end of the 1980s in the USSR not under ?civic? slogans, but under slogans of Soviet transition to ?democracy? and the ?rule of law?16. The term ?democratic? was present in the titles of the most radical groups and movements in the country: from Novodvorskaya's schizoid Democratic Union to massive (at that time) Democratic Russia and from the Social Democratic Platform of the CPSU to Travkin's Democratic Party of Russia and Rutskoy's ?Communists for Democracy?. Symbolically, one of the very first political groups that used the term grazhdansky in its title was Grazhdansky soyuz (the Civic Union), the most promising and influential democratic organization standing in the opposition to domestic and foreign policy of the Russian government in general, and to the disastrous course of Chubais' privatization and the experiments of market bolshevists17 with the Russian economy in particular18. Refusal of Yeltsin and his radical supporters to hold a dialogue with the Civic Union in the second half of 1992 marginalized Russian politics and channelled governmental economic and social policy to predominantly confrontational and eventually violent forms. With the collapse of communism in Central and Eastern Europe, internal content of the idea of civil society so drastically changed that some authors even began speaking about the ?fall of the concept of civil society?19. This observation is probably correct if we mean an exclusively negative, destructive component of the concept - a denial of the state per se as an apparatus of force; mobilization of societal resistance aimed at overthrowing the state. However, in the words of Bronislaw Geremek (a former Polish Solidarity activist and subsequently the parliamentary leader of the Democratic Union, the largest of the post-Solidarity parties), civil society today ?cannot and should not base itself on emotions, but on the building of carefully nurtured institutions... The main task now is constructing democratic mechanisms of stability?. And in the opinion of Larry Diamond (of the Hoover Institution), the ?single most important and urgent factor in the consolidation of democracy is not civil society but political institutionalization?20. ?Democratic mechanisms of stability? and ?political institutionalization? are the key words here. And in this respect the conclusions of Geremek and Diamond are highly relevant to Russia as well. At the first glance, the term ?civil society? is quite extensively represented in contemporary Russian legislation. The term ?civil society? has been used in more than a hundred legal acts and official documents (adopted in 1991-2001). Such acts include at least 10 presidential decrees, half of which were issued in March-June of 1996 at the height of Yeltsin's presidential campaign21, two presidential directives22, three resolutions of federal legislative bodies (Supreme Soviet and State Duma)23, two resolutions of the RF Constitutional Court, and one resolution of the Federal Arbitration Court of the Moscow District24; three federal programs: on ?Continuation of Reforms and Stabilization of Russian Economy? in 1993, on support to book-printing in Russia in 1996-2001, and ?Culture of Russia (2001-2005)?25, and at least three resolutions of the RF Government26. ?Civil society? is also mentioned in numerous legal acts and official documents adopted in regions of Russia27, for instance, in six resolutions of Moscow Government28, in three addresses of regional leaders of Russia (Bashkortostan29 and Tatarstan), and in a number of other acts of executive or legislative bodies30. Lip service to the necessity of developing or strengthening ?civil society? in Russia was paid in all ?State of the Nation? annual addresses of the Russian President to the Federal Assembly (1994-2001), as well as in the Concept of Foreign Policy of the Russian Federation31 and in the Doctrine of Information Security of the Russian Federation32. Yet, apparently, there is only one federal Law - ?On Education? (No. 3266-1 of July 22, 1992) - that uses this term. A quarter of all official documents mentioning ?civil society? (to be precise, 25 of them) are international agreements, communique or memoranda (including those adopted by the UN, UNESCO, OSCE, G-8, the Council of Europe and its Parliamentary Assembly, the Supreme Council of Russia-Belarus Union, as well as a joint statement by Presidents Putin and Kostunica of October 27, 2000 in Moscow). This figure will become even bigger if we add documents hardly having significant legal meaning (like an information report of the RF Central Bank of October 3, 1995, or four orders, three letters and one resolution of the RF Ministry of General and Professional Education and the RF Ministry of Education)33, plus those adopted by lesser institutions and organizations (like three resolutions of the Federation of Independent Trade Unions of February-March 1996, or a resolution of the 3rd Congress of Russian Judges of March 25, 1994 ?On the Concept of the RF Judicial System?). As a result, a comprehensive Dictionary of Russian Legislation: Terms, Concepts, Definitions contains about 25,000 legal terms and definitions but there is not ?civil society? among them34. Even the most fundamental commentaries to the RF Constitutions don't mention ?civil society? in their indexes35. III. Russian legislation is not the only one having unsettled relations with the term ?civil society?. The concept of ?civil society? remains a matter of much dispute predominantly among scholars of philosophy and political theory. Civil society itself is a philosophical concept (which is also used in political science and sociology). Scholars trace the origins of this doctrine to the works of Plato, Aristotle, Cicero, Bodin, Grotius, Gobbs, Milton, Spinoza, Locke, classics of French and German Enlightenment (Montesqieu, Rousseau, Pufendorf, Leibniz, Thomasius, Wolf), as well as to the system of civil society developed by Hegel36. The concept of civil society is much closer to contemporary political studies rather than to legal research. A sample search in just one magazine - Journal of Democracy in the 1990s - indicated at least 19 major publications dedicated to ?paradoxes?, ?renovation?, ?democratization?, ?resurgence?, ?awakening? and other perturbations of civil society in various parts of the world, including Russia and other post-communist countries37. On the other hand, publications dedicated to legal aspects of the concept in Russian or foreign academic periodicals and editions are extremely rare. In legal terms, civil society does not have a strict definition either in Russian or Western law. It is practically unknown in American legislation. The term and its definitions are absent in such sources as Merriam-Webster's Dictionary of Law, Ballentine's Law Dictionary, with Pronunciations, Mellinkoff's Dictionary of American Legal Usage or in Brian A. Garner's A Dictionary of Modern Legal Usage. Burton's Legal Thesaurus contains 27 associated concepts of 'civil' - from civil law to civil war, from civil contract to civil disobedience, and from civil service to civil suit, but there is no ?civil society? among them. A fundamental reference edition Words & Phrases. Permanent Edition. 1658 to Date (1964-2001) consists of more than 100 volumes and includes ?all judicial constructions and definitions of words and phrases by the state and federal courts from the earliest times, alphabetically arranged and indexed?, except ?civil society?. Black's Law Dictionary is presumably the only known American law dictionary which contains a legal description of ?civil society?, but that doesn't help either, because that source defines the term as ?the political body of a state or nation; the body politic? (p.1396) which basically incorporates the whole spectrum of socio-political relations in the country38. Naturally, the fact itself that the term ?civil society? can hardly be found in the U.S. legislation does not necessarily mean that civil society does not exist in the U.S. It means, however, that civil society cannot be instituted by special parliamentary acts or executive orders and is created and nurtured in decades of social development. Various authors offer different and sometimes contradictory definitions of ?civil society? (or, like Bronislaw Geremek and contemporary Russian legal scholar V.M. Lebedev, refuse to define it or delimit its interrelations with the law-governed state at all)39. For example, ?moderately restrictive? definition of ?civil society? proposed by M. Steven Fish has room for Gaidar's DemRossiya (whose role and legacy are favorably evaluated by Fish), but allegedly excludes ?fanatical organizations and groups that seek to seize control of the state and rule exclusively?40 (emphasis added. - AD). On the other hand, Alexander Lukin correctly describes Democratic Russia and other radical ?'democratic' activists? in Russia as viewing democracy ?not as a system of compromises among various groups and interests... but as the unlimited power of 'democrats' replacing unlimited power of the communists?41 (emphasis added. - AD). Thus, Democratic Russia certainly meets Fish's definition of a ?fanatical organization? and can not be considered a ?civil society? group (or ?civic group?). Before speaking about the peculiarities of Russian interpretations of civil society, it's necessary to state that, despite all misunderstandings and periodic use of the term in political demagoguery, rehabilitation of the concept of civil society in Russian science and political life is certainly a very positive accomplishment in itself. Needless to say, for many decades, there was no place in Soviet social sciences (including law) for an objective, unbiased study of such complex concepts as ?civil society?, ?rule of law? or ?separation of powers?. The dogmatic view on the nature of the Soviet society42 as a ?society without conflicts? (beskonfliktnoe obschestvo) made any serious research of those doctrines irrelevant. The Philosophical Dictionary (1975) described ?civil society? exclusively as a concept of ?pre-Marxist philosophy?43. Sergei S. Alexeev, a Sverdlovsk legal scholar and a future Chairman of the USSR Constitutional Supervision Committee, insisted that law ?by its nature cannot be above the state? and that rule of law is a ?deceitful, false, scientifically untenable (lzhivaya, fal'shivaya, nauchno nesosyatel'naya) bourgeois theory?. Avgust A. Mishin interpreted the legal status of President in the U.S. and other foreign countries as that of the ?constitutional monarch?, a ?somewhat atavism?, a ?sign of a philistine admiration for Crown?. In 1989, Moscow professor Vladimir N. Danilenko still argued that judicial constitutional review provides ?wide opportunities for an assault on rights and freedoms?44. One more general observation. The Ideological Department of the CPSU Central Committee may have collapsed, but a typical partiyniy approach still has its staunch supporters among certain Western experts. Just like the Communist propagandists were explaining virtually all negative features of the Soviet realities either by foreign capitalist conspiracies or by ?birth marks of the damned pre-1917 Russian past?, these modern activists of Western agitprop prove to be every bit as ideological as their Bolshevik predecessors and find explanations to current Russian problems in anything other than crimes and misdeeds of Yeltsin's kleptocratic regime45 or in mistakes of the ?experts? themselves, for years providing Russian ?reformers? with ?bad advice? in ?fatally-flawed macroeconomic policy?46. In his paper ?Market Reform, Democracy, and Civil Society after Communism? Anders ?slund repeats an old libel when calling the Russian parliament (which was dissolved by Yeltsin in 1993) ?pre-democratic and highly unrepresentative? (p. 17). ?Pre-democratic?? Unlike the USSR Congress of People's Deputies (elected in March 1989), the Russian parliament was elected after abolition of the CPSU Supremacy Clause (in Article 6 of the USSR and RSFSR Constitutions), without such ?filters? as the system of ?electoral commissions?47 or reservation of a third of all seats in the Congress of People's Deputies (CPD) for representatives of ?public associations? (like CPSU, Komsomol, and other CPSU-controlled organizations). At its very first session (held on May 29 - June 16, 1990), the Russian CPD elected Yeltsin, the most visible radical politician in the country, as its Chairman. Upon Yeltsin's initiative the parliament introduced presidency in Russia48, granting the Russian president extensive powers, including those overlapping powers of the Union President. The Congress also declared that presidential elections were to be held in about three weeks (on June 12, 1991), thus guaranteeing Yeltsin, the only all-Russian leader at that time, a definite priority over other candidates49. It was the same parliament that ?defended? democracy, Constitution and Soviet President in the days of the ?soap opera? coup in August 1991, and then pushed dissolution of the Union Legislature and stripped the USSR deputies of their rights and privileges. Democratic record of the first Russian parliament is unquestionable. Half a year after formation of the Russian parliament, U.S. Senator Cranston introduced ?Report of the Survey Mission to the Soviet Union (July 29 - August 3, 1990)? (prepared by the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs (NDI)) and endorsed the report's statement saying that ?the legislature of the RSFSR is at the forefront of political reform?50. Next year, Representative Schaefer ?applaud[ed] the anticoup resistance spearheaded by democratically elected leaders?. He ?especially regognize[d] the resistance displayed by the Supreme Soviet of the Russian Republic, led by its speaker Ruslan Khasbulatov?. In the Congressman's words, ?the legitimacy and authority of these democratically elected Russian leaders [Khasbulatov, Yeltsin, Sobchak. - AD] helped undermine crucial military support for the coup plotters?51. It was ?slund himself who in 1991 described Ruslan Khasbulatov, Professor of Economics and a future leader of parliamentary opposition to Yeltsin52, as a ?radical economist [who] ascended to political prominence with appropriate visibility?53. In the words of Sergei Kovalev (20 January 1992), who was named by David Remnick ?Andrei Sakharov's greatest disciple in the human rights movement?54, ?for the very first time in its history, those people are in power in Russia who are elected by people and express real interests of people?55. Kovalev himself was elected to the Russian parliament and chaired the Human Rights Committee of the Russian Supreme Soviet. Was the first Russian parliament ?highly unrepresentative?? According to official figures of the Central Election Commission, on March 4, 1990, 6,705 candidates ran for 1,068 seats in the Congress of People's Deputies (CPD) - an average of more than six per district. There were more than 4 candidates in 300 electoral districts, and more than 20 (!) in 24 of them. The reports of the U.S. Federal Election Commission and the New York-based Lawyers Committee for Human Rights recognized the 1990 elections of the RSFSR CPD as ?the freest ever held in Russia?56. In an independent opinion of an Irish scholar, ?just as an abolition of the Party's leading role in society signaled the end of its monopoly on political life, so too the centralized Soviet government was undermined by the new parliamentary institutions. Their creation inaugurated the final crisis of Soviet power: they challenged the legitimacy of central rule from Moscow and heralded the end of the Soviet empire... Indeed, the Spring [of 1990] election campaign ... may be seen as the high-point of the democratic debate?57. It's not the first time that ?slund defames the first Russian parliament. He first dismissed it as ?pre-democratic? in his notorious article of 1994 ?Russia's Success Story?58. ?slund justified Yeltsin's violent coup d'etat59, because, in his opinion, the Russian Constitution was ?until December 1993, Russia's fundamental problem?60 (emphasis added. - AD) and, naturally, didn't deserve a better fate than it's de facto suspension in September 1993. Similarly, in his conference paper ?slund refuses to recognize the Russian parliament elected in 1990 as a ?parliament? at all and says that the first parliamentary elections were held in Russia ?almost two years after [Russia] attempted radical economic reform program[s]?, i.e. in December 1993 (p.23). But the new parliament didn't meet ?slund's expectations either. Already in the 1993 elections of the State Duma, the party of ?slund's cronies Yegor Gaidar and Anatoly Chubais suffered a catastrophic defeat (just like other radical ?reformers?)61. 85% of those who participated in the elections voted against Russia's Choice, despite a disproportionate use of TV broadcasting and other media by the party. As a result, when the investigation by Russia's independent Accounting Chamber (modeled on the U.S. General Accounting Office) came to a conclusion that Chubais' privatization (especially the loans-for-shares scheme) had been accomplished with massive fraud, ?slund didn't have any arguments against the Accounting Office's findings and dismissed them asserting that the Accounting Chamber ?is alas controlled by the Communist-dominated parliament?62. For information of Western readers: neither the State Duma (lower chamber of the Russian Federal Assembly), not the Federation Council (upper chamber) has ever been ?dominated? by the CPRF (alone or in a bloc with other friendly parliamentary factions, like the Agrarian Party), and the Accounting Chamber has never been ?controlled? by them. And ?slund knows that63. (More on other ?slund's myths and half-truths see footnote 119)64. IV. Despite all differences in the understanding of ?civil society? by Russian scholars, politicians, and legislators65, we can nevertheless try to formulate certain common and more or less accepted approaches. Unlike their Western counterparts who consider civil society an ?intermediary phenomenon, standing between the private sphere and the state? (Larry Diamond)66, ?an autonomous, self-regulating domain independent of the State? (Adam B. Seligman)67, thus placing a dividing line between civil society and the state, Russian scholars and policy-makers tend to interpret the ?law-governed state? (pravovoe gosudarstvo) as a political manifestation (ipostas') of ?civil society? (emphasis added. - AD). Rule of law is unquestionably a key element in sustaining the development of civil society, but a law-governed state is viewed not as if it is separated from civil society, but as a reality, which is based on the latter. Interrelations between the law-governed state and civil society are understood by Russian scholars as relations between form and substance, as a balanced, mutually restricted cooperation68. Civil society is interpreted not as diminishing the law-governed state, but rather completing it69. Overall, Russian scholars are hesitant to consider civil society as the uncontrolled realm of individuals. Following Hegel, Russian scholars tend to conclude that civil society doesn't exist before the state or outside of it. As if arguing with one of the above quoted authors (Adam Seligman), Oleg Rumyantsev, the Secretary of the (parliamentary) Russian Constitutional Commission in 1990-1993, wrote: ?Civil society is not absolutely autonomous, because it experiences certain influence from the state, doesn't exist before or outside of the latter, but coexists with its obvious reality which in a way embraces it?70 (emphasis added. - AD). The state provides protection to civil society, including protection of citizens' life and health, and maintenance of law and order. In Russian interpretation, civil society cannot be established at the state's expense. The state is responsible for maintenance of social justice in the country and approximation of levels of material wealth of citizens. With its protective foreign and defense policy, the state exercises its role as the ultimate guarantor of the existence of civil society and the Nation71. Even Western scholars do not consider civil society as an absolute value in itself. M. Steven Fish, for instance, speaks in quite positive terms about the absence of a ?vigorous civil society? in Russia in post-Soviet days, which was an ?advantage? for Gaidar's ?shock therapy?, because it reduced the ?strong popular resistance? to ?economic liberalization?72. Indeed, Russian radical ?reformers? (and their foreign advisors) cannot be consistent, sincere or logical when demanding creation (or development) of civil society in Russia today, because the absence of civil society (or its weakness) in the beginning of the 1990s was one of the most important factors that actually allowed them to exercise the pillage of the country under disguise of ?reforms?. It also deserves mentioning that the Draft Constitution prepared by the (parliamentary) Russian Constitutional Commission in 1990-1993 contained a special chapter dedicated to civil society. The Constitution of the Republic of Crimea of 1992 actually has such a chapter, and it was drafted with the support of members and experts of the Russian Constitutional Commission. Naturally, there was no room for a chapter on civil society in the semi-authoritarian, superpresidential, ?victor's Constitution?73 of Yeltsin74. To be successful, development of civil society in Russia has to be accompanied by strengthening Russian statehood. In Putin's words (from his address to the June 2001 meeting with NGOs), ?Great Russia is a great society?. Russian people are tired of state weakening activities of radical social groups and organizations that came to existence at the end of the 1980s and in the early 1990s; those organizations, whose motto can be expressed in the words of an Osip Mandelshtam's poem: ?We live but don't feel the country under us? (My zhivem pod soboyu ne chuya strany). Richard Rose's 7-year-old observation that ?if forced to choose, a majority of East Europeans would prefer weak and ineffective government to strong government?75 is no longer correct in respect to Russia. One of the main reasons of a stable and guaranteed electoral success of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation (and an important factor of victory of pro-Putin Unity in the 1999 parliamentary elections) can be explained by the fact that 42.1 of its supporters consider the KPRF program and activities ?state-oriented?76, whereas only 21.6 and 20 percent of voters of Yabloko and the Union of Rightist Forces find it important that their parties will work for strengthening Russian statehood77. According to a recent opinion poll, restoration of state power is considered the main unifying and mobilizing idea in Russia now. 35 percent of respondents named ?the revival of Russia as a mighty global power? as capable of uniting the Russian people comparing to 13 percent who named communism and socialism, 7 percent who named capitalism, 6 percent - democracy, 5 percent - Russia's ?uniqueness as a nation?, and 3 percent - religion78. V?clav Havel's description of civil society as a ?social space that fosters the feeling of solidarity between people and love for one's community?79 is very close to the Russian traditionalist understanding of the concept. According to a contemporary scholar from Siberia, ?civil society is a society of citizens having not only a certain level of legal consciousness, but a sense of national pride... love to one's fatherland?80. A number of public organizations may disagree that their views are characterized by Vladimir Kartashkin81 (a well-known Russian specialist in international law from the Institute of State and Law and the head of the presidential administration's Commission for Human Rights) as ?destructive?, but that's exactly how they are viewed not only by the Commission, but by the overwhelming majority of Russians. Although Kartashkin's statement was immediately dismissed by such NGOs (first of all, by the human rights group Memorial known for its disproportionate denouncement of Russian history and state82), the same approach was expressed by Vyacheslav Igrunov, a Soviet human rights activist, now a leading figure in the democratic Yabloko party, a federal State Duma deputy and Director of the Institute of Humanitarian and Political Studies. At a press conference of the Civic Forum organizing committee, Igrunov appealed to the Russian public organizations to stop ?futile exercises in fault-finding? (besplodnoe kritikanstvo) and urged that they turn to creative work in cooperation with the state. For many years, in Igrunov's words, the confrontational attitude was the most essential and characteristic element of certain NGOs, but now it's outdated. Confrontation leads to marginalization of members of such groups and groups themselves, and eventually marginalizes the ideas which are exploited by such people and organizations.83 Even the U.S. Congress-funded Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty had to recognize that ?there are, of course those groups which reject any kind of cooperation?84 with Russian authorities in their activities. Such groups certainly have their right to ?reject any kind of cooperation? with the Russian state, and the state has a legitimate right to call their activities ?destructive?. It's clear in this particular case, which side enjoys people's empathy. Failure to reregister (by September 2000) by a Yaroslav'l Oblast regional branch of Memorial and a subsequent decision of a local court to liquidate the branch (in July 2001)85 was favorably viewed by Yaroslav'l residents and didn't produce any major protests, meetings or demonstrations in Memorial's support. V. Western theoreticians of civil society, like Larry Diamond, agree that ?civil society encompasses a vast array of organizations, formal and informal?, and mention economic organizations (productive and commercial associations and networks) before any other civil society components: cultural, informational and educational organizations, interest groups, developmental organizations, issue-oriented movements, civic groups86. But the state is not only a power structure, but an active subject of economic activities too. That is true of any society, including Russian. The state has always played a special role in the national economics of Russia, and the state has traditionally enjoyed special property rights in respect to state enterprises, land, forests, etc. About a third of all property assets in Russia still belong to the state87. According to Argumenty i fakty (quoting officials and experts of the RF Ministry of Property Relations), ?where the state owns from 25 to 50 percent of shares, things go even worse than at enterprises with 100 percent state participation?88. No surprise, that 79 percent of the Russians ?strongly support or more or less support? strengthened state control over the economy89. Thus, even from a theoretical point of view it would be wrong to recognize a regular economic organization or an enterprise as an element of civil society and to deny this right to the state. Moreover, in the judicial sphere the state is accountable like any other subject of civil society: an individual citizen or a collective. It can probably be argued that the Russian interpretation of civil ?society? is closer to ?community? in Russian traditional understanding of that term, especially because both words are synonyms in Russian - obschestvo. In this respect, Grigoriy Yavlinsky's recent criticism (in a liberal newspaper) that Russia has a ?defective? and ?unstable? democracy which ?is not supported by the majority of Russians?, and that civil society is substituted with ?the Soviet version of community?90 is close to reality, even though the same newspaper tried to ridicule him by saying that ?the chief trouble with our democracy is the people. Without them it would work perfectly well?91. Indeed, as far as civil society and its elements are concerned, according to a recent opinion poll (conducted by the Public Opinion foundation among 1,500 urban and rural residents in June 2001), only five percent of Russian citizens are active in public organizations. Seventy-three percent of the respondents said they would not like to work in any public organization versus 15% who said that they would92. A recent UNICEF report Young People in Changing Societies finds that young people are even less active in social organizations (or in sport activities) than in the late 1980s93. The average Russian expresses distrust of seven out of 10 key institutions of civil society, with political parties as the least trusted (7%) and courts and army as the most trusted (40% and 62%, respectively) institutions in the country94. Only 14 percent of Russians (every seventh of us) consider Russia a democratic state, with 54 percent saying that ?overall? it is not. Sixty percent don't believe that their votes are capable of changing anything95. Although as few as 6.9% of the 1,500 Russians polled by the Russian Public Opinion and Market independent research center (ROMIR) believe that a situation in which political leaders make arbitrary decisions as they see fit would be best for Russia, and although as few as 2.8% believe that military rule would be very good for Russia, only 9.1% of Russians (fewer than every tenth of us) believe that democracy is ?the best form of rule despite certain problems it poses? (an additional 38.7% ?to some degree? share this view)96. An analytical report Attitude of Population to Federal Laws and Bodies of State Power prepared at the Institute of Legislation and Comparative Law under the Russian Government97 indicates that 70 to 80 percent of Russians think that ?laws overall do not work?. 28.2 percent of civil servants recognize that they have to ignore or violate federal laws in their work. 70 percent of the population believe that they have to undertake illegal actions in order to guarantee their legitimate rights more often now than before the beginning of legal reforms in the country. 56 percent of the population (and 58.9% of civil servants) consider the government and other federal bodies of the executive branch the most corrupt. Since the end of 1989, people's trust in the federal legislature has shrunk from 88 percent (to the USSR Supreme Soviet) to 4.3 percent (to the State Duma). Only 3.7 to 3.9 percent of Russians (4.8-5.1% of civil servants; 7 to 8.7% of Russian elite) agree that Yeltsin's decade was a ?necessary stage in development? of the Russian society98. 95.1 percent of the population (and 94.4 percent of civil servants) vote for a ?decisive restoration of order in the country?. Although as many as 89 percent of the 1,600 Russians polled by the All-Russia Center for Public Opinion Studies (on April 14 -17, 2000; in 150 poll locations in 83 areas of 33 regions of the country), ?strongly support or more or less support? guaranties of democratic rights and freedoms of every citizen, an increasingly growing percentage of Russians (from 71% in February 1998, to 81% in April 2000) believe that order (?even if it is necessary to break some democratic principles and limit people's personal freedoms to establish it?) is the ?most important issue for the country at the moment?99. According to another opinion poll (conducted by Monitoring.ru), 68 percent of the Russians favor such a restrictive institution as propiska (versus 23 percent who say that it should be abolished) and believe that citizens of the Russian Federation should have to register at their place of residence via the propiska system100. War of kompromat between TV channels controlled by rivaling oligarchs, profiteering101, overcommercialization, de-intellectualization and a general degradation of liberal mass media in Russia, have led to quite expectable consequences - the second oldest profession has nearly lost its function as a means of expressing independent public opinion and, in the words of Oleg Poptsov, a veteran of the glasnost campaign and the president of TV Tsentr (under jurisdiction of the Moscow city government), ?has now moved closer to the first oldest [profession] than ever before?102. As a result, although there is no much support for introducing any kind of political censorship, over 60 percent of respondents (across all categories) in a May 2001 opinion poll are prepared to approve some sort of a preliminary checking or censorship of press reports and publications, in order to ensure ?objectivity of information and a balanced evaluation of current events?. An even more significant majority of Russians (three quarters of respondents, regardless of their age or education levels) are in favor of censorship aimed at safeguarding public morals103. According to a poll conducted by the All-Russian Center for Public Opinion Research (VTsIOM) in June 2001, about three quarters of Russians (72 percent), including Alexander Solzhenitsyn104, a symbol of resistance to the Communist tyranny of the past, Yuri Chaika, Russian Minister of Justice, and many other leading figures of Russian society and culture, openly and vigorously support restoration of the death penalty for certain crimes, whereas only 19 percent want it abolished105. Another survey held by the same research center was dedicated to Iosif Stalin's 120th birth anniversary and had even more indicative results: 44 percent of the Russians believe that the Stalin era brought good and bad in equal portions to this country; 19 percent think that there was more good than bad; and 3 percent more consider that era an absolutely good time. This sums up to 66 percent106. Yavlinsky is wrong, however, when he emphasizes the word ?Soviet? in his warning of a creation of ?the Soviet version of community? (emphasis added. - AD) for what was described above as a current interpretation of civil society in Russia is closer in its essence to a traditional Russian, rather than the Soviet version of a community. It is true that at the turn of the 21st century, Russia (in many respects) lacks a developed civil society in its Western understanding. The term itself for us in Russia has more theoretical than practical meaning. A question that still needs to be answered by social scientists, however, is whether the civil society concept is universal and equally applicable to various countries and civilizations. As Harold J. Berman has observed, contemporary legal systems are only surface expressions of deeper, broader forces of cultural evolution: ?Law cannot be neatly classified in terms of social-economic forces. A legal system is built up slowly over the centuries, and it is in many respects remarkably impervious to social upheavals. This is as true of Soviet [now Russian. - AD] law, which is built on the foundations of the Russian past, as it is of American law, with its roots in English and Western European history?107. Naturally, that observation concerns the creation of civil society (or community) in Russia. It was already mentioned that civil society can hardly be instituted by a discrete legal act. Luckily, Russia has already passed through the ordeal of legislative euphoria and normative idealism of Gorbachev's period; the tendency to view the law as a panacea for social problems, to make the law absolute without recognising the limits of any legal action108. It's a recognized fact that legislation, as a rule, reflects various pre-legal norms and values (as well as prejudices) that are accepted by large strata of a society at a given time period. Legislation can work effectively when it embodies socio-cultural principles that are accepted by the majority of the people. If a new ?progressive? or ?reactionary? piece of legislation (usually in a form of a by-law or an executive legal instrument) is shoved down throats of the majority of the population or when people don't accept or understand it, such legislation in all likelihood becomes a ?dead letter?. In the worst scenario, the law will not just be ignored and triviliazed by people, but will prove to be detrimental to the goals that were proclaimed by the law-makers themselves. The RSFSR Law ?On the Rehabilitation of the Repressed Peoples? is probably one of the most notorious examples in this respect. The act (passed by the RSFSR Supreme Soviet on 26 April 1991) promised both ?political? and ?territorial rehabilitation? to the ?repressed peoples? (repressirovannye narody) and proclaimed re-establishment of ?historical borders?. Specifically, Article 6 of the law provided for ?the restoration of their [?repressed peoples'?. - AD] national borders which had existed before the frontiers were changed by an anti-constitutional force?. While raising a question of reconsidering existing ?inner borders?, the law provoked mutual territorial claims of ethnic republics and administrative regions against each other, and led to open local conflicts. Behind a smoke screen of proud words about ?human rights?, ?repentance? and the necessity to ?rehabilitate the repressed peoples?, the law provided the regional elites (often represented by ethnic minorities) with a legal sanction for the redistribution of territories, power, and property in the Russian Federation and for boosting their political and economic influence. Subsequently, at least two major emergencies were triggered by that law: the ?Chechen struggle for independence?, which actually began in September 1991, and the Ossetian-Ingush conflict over the North Ossetian Prigorodny raion (1992-1995). A recent reshuffle of the Clemency Commission of the presidential administration and a replacement of its former head Anatoly Pristavkin raised a new wave of criticism of Russian 'civility' in Western press. The Pristavkin's commission was portrayed exclusively as ?one of the few structures of a civil society?, and as a ?humanizing tool? in Russia's ?failing?, ?notoriously corrupt, inefficient and highly dependent? judicial and law enforcement system. Members of the commission were praised as ?liberal writers and scholars who worked day and night, so as to save as many victims of faulty trials as possible?. Pristavkin himself modestly called his commission ?an island of mercy in a sea of cruelty?109. Sentiments aside, according to official statistics, the number of recommended pardons has grown from 2,726 in 1992 (when the Clemency Commission was formed) to 4,988 in 1995, 7,418 in 1999, and 12,843 in 2000. As a rule, all recommendations of the commission were satisfied by Presidents Yeltsin and Putin (in the beginning of his term). Every Tuesday (the only day when the Clemency Commission holds it meetings), members of the commission considered between 200 and 700 (!) cases. At least 308 times, administration of the prisons or colonies objected to the commission's recommendations to pardon certain inmates, but they were pardoned anyway. The percentage of petty criminals pardoned in 2000 upon recommendations of the commission was less than a quarter, whereas 76% of the pardoned criminals comprised of those who had been sentenced for murders (2,689), ?assaults leading to a severe injury to the health of a victim? (2,188), banditry (1,848), robbery (709), kidnapping (18), etc.110. One of the latest sets of 17 draft ?pardon decrees? sent by the Pristavkin's commission to Putin (with a recommendation to sign them) included 2,565 names. 2,449 of them (95 percent) were criminals convicted for ?serious and very serious? (tyazhkie i osobo tyazhkie) crimes111. Recidivists comprised about 60 percent of the list: 1,070 of them had been convicted twice, 318 - three times, 81 - four times, and 37 - five or more times112. For comparison, although the legal institute of clemency is known in most countries of the world, it's applied extremely rarely, in exceptional cases or circumstances. The comprehensive list of acts of clemency (which may be a reprieve, remission of fine, commutation, or pardon) in 206 years from George Washington to Bill Clinton (excluding scandalous pardons granted by Clinton to 140 crooks and criminals on his last day in office)113, includes about 27,000 names114. In the last 8 years only 0.3 percent of convicted criminals have been pardoned in the U.S. In Germany 111 people were pardoned in 1994-1999. Nobody has been pardoned in Japan in the last 30 years. President of France receives 25,000-35,000 pardon petitions a year, but satisfies not more than 1.5-2 percent of them. Legislation of Great Britain doesn't know clemency at all115. VI. Although virtually all participants in the recent press conference of the Civic Forum organizing committee spoke about the necessity of ?constructive cooperation? between the institutions of civil society and the state, full-fledged cooperation between them is still in the realm of wishful thinking. If distrust was indeed a ?pervasive legacy of communist rule?, as Richard Rose claims in his article ?Rethinking Civil Society: Postcommunism and the Problem of Trust? (p.18), it's even more so in post-Communist, ?democratic? Russia116. And it's not the peculiarities of Russian statist, conservative and traditionalist understanding of civil society that pose the main problem to an actual development of civil society in the country, but rather the current condition of the Russian society itself. Vladimir Putin inherited a crushed, looted and humiliated country struggling to survive the liquidation regime of the ?reformers?117. The country, whose GDP has lost about 44 percent in just 10 years118, whose increase in mortality rates (60 percent since 1990) has been ?unprecedented in any country during peacetime since the Middle Ages?119, whose population has been shrinking by up to half a percent a year120, the country which now stands in the 134th place among all states in terms of male life expectancy (by 1997, death rate among Russian males had equaled that of war-ravaged Liberia121) and 100th in terms of female life expectancy122, whose men have a smaller chance to survive to age 60 than a century ago123, and which has more homeless children today than after the Bolshevik revolution124. An unprecedented social catastrophe in Russia, ?a human crisis of monumental proportions? (in definition of the U.N. Development Program's report Transition 1999. Human Development Report for Central and Eastern Europe and the CIS)125, which was largely ignored by the Western community126, makes discussions about ?civil society? in Russia today even more artificial and irrelevant than 10 years ago. The concept of civil society certainly implies some degree of well-being. Destitute people are unable to form a civil society. At the turn of the 21st Century, the Russian Nation must consider how to stop the depopulation of Russia and overcome disastrous consequences of Yeltsin's regime rather than involve the country in another round of radical economic ?reforms? and futile social engineering. Otherwise, there won't be neither Russia nor its society, whether civil or uncivil. It is certainly not true that Russia's socioeconomic catastrophe was ?largely unanticipated?, that the deindustrialization of the Russian economy was an ?unintended consequence? of liberal ?reforms? (Thomas Graham) or that ?when the liberal experiment began, no one, either in Russia or in the West, anticipated... this strange and troubling outcome? (Martin Malia)127. Warnings about the inevitability of such a collapse and about the suicidal character of monetarist experiments with the Russian economy were repeatedly voiced by the Russian Parliament already in 1992 and became one of the main reasons of its violent dissolution by President Yeltsin. A dissolution which was not only unconditionally supported, but encouraged by the Western ?international community? in general128 and by executive and legislative branches of the U.S. Government in particular129. VII. This brings us to the final observation - on the role of foreign ?aid? in development of civil society in Russia. Although foreign inputs can support creation of infrastructure to nurture fledgling democratic institutions, a truly democratic and civil society is to be founded on a solid domestic ground. Democratic institutions derive their legitimacy from people and not from foreign sponsors of ?changes?. The current situation in Russia, where the non-governmental sector ?is still dependent on Western funding?130, is utterly unhealthy131. A recent proposal by two American scholars to replace the ?old formula for democracy 'Get the institutions right, and the people will follow'?, with a new one 'Represent the will of the people within the state, and the institutions will follow'132, can be right only when the 'will of the people' is voiced by the people and not by their foreign mentors. Colton & McFaul basically agree and repeat Peter Stavrakis' criticism of American ?aid? in general133 and of the activities of the U.S. Agency for International Development in Russia in particular134 (never mentioning him or his publications, though). The problem is that the proposed change of strategy of foreign aid from ?technical assistance for the crafting of democratic institutions, be it democratic electoral laws, constitutions, courts, or political parties? to ?pro-democratic elements in Russia's society?135, to ?those brave people in Russia still fighting for democracy?136, not in the times of Peter Stavrakis' ground-breaking article, but in 2001 is a sly attempt to keep providing foreign money to the same small clique of corrupt and/or morally bankrupt pro-Western ?reformers? (who were among the main recipients of American ?aid? in the 1990s, but who are either no longer in the Russian government or on their way from it) under a disguise of ?aid? to educational NGOs (like Gaidar's Institute of Transitional Economy), or public associations (like dwarf organizations of Filatov, Shumeiko, Rybkin and other ?reformers? of Yeltsin's period137, survivors of his kleptocratic regime, ?an authority of thieves or of people dependent on them?138). Those very ?reformers? who first looted Russia and then ?conned? their Western sponsors139. What American aid to the non-governmental sector actually means can also be illustrated by a Belarussian example. Although the main (if not the only) reason for Washington's dissatisfaction with the current Belarussian regime is President Lukashenko's independent foreign and domestic policy, his refusal to follow commands from overseas and his devotion to creation of a full-fledged Union with Russia, the U.S. State Department in its public statements puts pressure on the Belarussian authorities not for that, but for the fact that they allegedly have ?harassed civil society? and ?abandoned? (since 1996) Belarus's ?transition to democracy and the rule of law?140. In plain words, Colin Powell's warning (made two weeks before the presidential election in Belarus) meant that the Bush Administration had no doubts as to the veracity of a new landslide victory of Alexander Lukashenko, the most trusted and respected Belarussian leader141, but indicated that it would never recognize their results142. Surprisingly, we in Russia never heard similar warnings from the U.S. officials either when Yeltsin (an ?explicitly pro-American, pro-Western, pro-market? president, keeping ?Russia on a pro-Western track?, as he was characterized in the U.S. Congress143) shelled the Russian parliament and suspended the activities of the Constitutional Court144, or when Russia's ?dream team? (with support of American consultants and foreign money) staged the 1996 presidential election farce145. In a truly amazing admission, Michael G. Kozak, the U.S. Ambassador to Belarus, bluntly stated in a letter to The Guardian that America's ?objective and to some degree methodology are the same? in Belarus as in Nicaragua, where the U.S. backed the Contras against the left-wing Sandinista Government146. Another British newspaper, The Times, reminded its readers that Washington's war against Nicaragua with U.S.-funded, trained and led death squads claimed at least 30,000 lives147. Ambassador Kozak's letter to The Guardian 15 days before the presidential election in Belarus is an opening warning to the Belarussian electorate: vote the U.S.-approved way or face the fate of Nicaragua. Kozak (also known by his petname 'Weasel' which was given to him by the late CIA Director William Casey)148 was a perfect choice to do this kind of work in Belarus. Earlier in his career, he served as Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for Inter-American Affairs under Presidents Reagan and Bush, working in Panama, Nicaragua and El-Salvador. While Kozak was serving in Nicaragua, Reagan famously compared the Contras to the French Resistance fighters. Has America already forgotten this shameful episode of its modern history? Kozak's letter gives a reason to see in a much more concrete light the remark of NATO official Jamie Shea, reportedly made during his address to the Cambridge Club in November 2000. According to Kommersant-Daily (21, 24 November 2000), Shea told the club that NATO helped the Yugoslav opposition elect Vojislav Kostunica and that ?Belarus might become the next country where a similar tactic can be applied?149. In fact, Ian Traynor, a Moscow correspondent of The Guardian, also comes to a conclusion that the American anti-Lukashenko ?strategy repeated in exact detail the tactics the U.S. used to help the Serbian opposition overthrow Slobodan Milosevic a year ago, and the Nicaraguan opposition unseat Daniel Ortega in 1990?150. Another British observer confirms: ?Some Americans view Belarus as another Serbia - and indeed, officials responsible for Serbia and Belarus were united at a U.S. State Department meeting in February?151. A spokesman for the U.S. Embassy in Minsk told The Times that the embassy helped to fund 300 non-governmental organizations and admitted that ?some? of them were linked to those who were ?seeking political change?152. ?Helped? is certainly an understatement here. Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty is more precise: ?Many groups in Belarus rely on foreign money for their activities?153. Christian Science Monitor revealed that Washington spent $24 million in 2000 to support NGOs and opposition groups in Belarus, and is going to spend even more this year. And according to The Guardian, ?about $50m (?35m) in US aid has gone to various Belarus opposition organisations in the past two years?154. That's in the country where National Bank reserves do not exceed $200 million!155 To what extent such groups, created and funded by the U.S. in Belarus can be considered ?independent? (i.e. ?not governed by a foreign power; self-governing; free from the influence, guidance, or control of another or others; self-reliant?) is certainly a big question. To make things more understandable to American readers, 300 Washington-funded NGOs is one organization for every 34,000 citizens of a 10-million republic. What would be the reaction of American people and the Bush Administration if some foreign country (for instance, Libya or Iraq, whose governments are as friendly to the U.S., as the U.S. government to Belarus) would set up and provide multibillion funding to some 8,250 ?civil society? groups (one for every 34,000 Americans) aimed at ?seeking political change? (read: ?overthrowing the President?, ?changing the political regime?) in the U.S.? There is nothing unusual in President Lukashenko's Decree No.8 of March 12, 2001 ?On Certain Measures of Regulation of the Procedure of Receipt and Use of Foreign Gratuitous Aid?. The decree consists of 5 articles. It enlists a wide variety of activities that can be funded by foreign aid but outlaws the use of foreign funds for electoral or conspiratorial purposes (art.4). All that NGOs need to do is to register foreign aid with the presidential Department for Humanitarian Activities (art.1.2) and keep funds in approved state banks (art.2)156. There is nothing ?draconian?157 about the decree either. On the contrary, it should have been issued long before. And it was in complete accordance with Article 4 of the decree that on July 12, 2001, Belarus authorities seized U.S.-supplied equipment (which had been leased by the U.S. Embassy Democracy Commission to a newspaper in Krichev) designed to ?assist the country's democratic opposition ahead of Sept. 9 presidential elections?. Rather than being embarrassed that the U.S. Embassy had been caught violating Belarussian sovereignty and legislation, State Department spokesman Richard Boucher demanded that Washington's computers be returned158. Belarussian ?opposition? and its Western sponsors labeled the decree as unconstitutional159, but failed to produce any argument proving its allegedly unconstitutional character. Why doesn't the Constitutional Court decide it? Belarussian law does not allow individual citizens to petition the Constitutional Court? Neither does the Russian Constitution of 1993 cheered by an American expert as creating ?a genuine western democracy?, ?a true federation?, protecting ?all basic civil rights... not only in theory as they did in the past, but in practice as is true in western democracies?160. The empire strikes back! Often correctly criticized, Lukashenko's Constitution of Belarus161 is just a stronger version of Yeltsin's Constitution162. What was viewed in the West as a perfect Constitution for an ?explicitly pro-American, pro-Western, pro-market? president of Russia (?a corrupt but friendly drunk?, as he is called by American press today163, ?a selfish arrogant bully... destined to bankrupt the country... corrupt, venal... half dead and often incoherent?, but ?our guy?164), back-lashed and became counter-productive to American interests when the same or similar constitutional provisions were endorsed by a more independent (not corrupt and much sober) national leader of Belarus165. The Belarussian experience with foreign interference in internal affairs of that republic under disguise of Western ?aid? to ?civil society? groups is not so much different from the Russian experience166. The continuation of U.S. reliance on a narrow circle of pro-Western liberal intelligentsia and ?agents of democratic change? (mainly concentrated in Moscow and half a dozen of other urban centers)167 proves to be wasteful, eventually unproductive for the U.S. interests (if those interests are not aimed at the ultimate subordination of Russia and further aggravation of her socio-economic problems) and detrimental to the interests of long-term institutional legal and democratic development of Russia, including development of her civil society. What Western governments and experts should do instead of continuing their futile (and ridiculous) attempts to ?pull Russia into the West?168, threatening Russia with ?negative consequences?169, and frightening themselves and their communities with horror stories that if Russia does not continue ?reforms? ?following strategies developed in Western capitals?170, then ?it most likely will have become a dictatorship and a threat to Europe?171, is rather follow the advice of Charles H. Fairbanks, Jr. (of Johns Hopkins University's School of Advanced International Studies): ?Those of us who care about the advance of democracy in the world should make it our foremost intellectual and practical task to find out why our reform strategy went wrong in so much of the former Soviet bloc?172. From a-list-admin at lists.econ.utah.edu Fri Nov 2 04:23:08 2001 From: a-list-admin at lists.econ.utah.edu (a-list-admin@lists.econ.utah.edu) Date: Sat Jul 8 08:08:23 2006 Subject: [A-List] footnotes to Domrin paper on Russia Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.2.20011102111841.00aa3540@pop.tiscali.co.uk> 1 Aknowledgment: The author wishes to thank Alexei Lyubimov of the State Duma Law Department and Natalia Myakova of the Russian Parliamentary Library for their support with materials for this article. 2 Polit.ru, 28 June 2001. Probably in the context of the forthcoming discussion of civil society development in Russia, a day before the meeting with the President, envoy Latyshev told Moscow reporters about his new initiative to start TV broadcasting of the judicial proceedings against corrupt officials as a form of combating official corruption (Polit.ru, 27 June 2001; Interfax, 27 June 2001). 3 Polit.ru, 12 July 2001. 4 For further research in the Russian non-governmental sector see a number of useful websites: www.ngo.ru (Catalog of Social Resources on Internet); www.trainet.org (Virtual Resource Center for NGOs); www.hrights.ru (Human Rights Institute); www.hro.org (Human Rights Online); infohome.dcn-asu.ru and infohome.alt.ru (InfoHouse-Altai); www.cip.nsk.su (Inter-regional Public Foundation Siberian Civic Initiatives Support Center); www.hartia.ru (Information and Discussion Portal of Civil Society in Russia). Views of Russian special services on civil society are quite adequaltely represented in: ?Grazhdanskoe obschestvo i ego vragi? [Civil Society and Its Enemies]. An Interview with Sergei Goncharov, Spetsnaz Rossii, No. 10 (61), 20 October 2001; also available at http://www.specnaz.ru:8101/gazeta/10_2001/3.htm. 5 Interfax, 4 September 2001 (quoting Evgeni Vodopyanov, the vice president of the Union of Charitable Organizations of Russia). 6 See ?Good Works?, The Economist, 24 March 2001, p. 61-62. 7 On 12 June 1990, the RSFSR Congress of People's Deputies adopted the Declaration of State Sovereignty proclaiming the ?supremacy? of Russian Constitution and Russian laws ?throughout the territory of the RSFSR?, suspending ?the effect of acts of the USSR which are contrary to the sovereign rights of the RSFSR? (Art. 5), and declaring the necessity of concluding a new Union Treaty (Art. 6, 15). According to an objective assessment of F.J.M. Feldbrugge, a leading European expert in Russian law, together with the subsequently adopted Russian laws of October 24, 1990 ?On the Effect of Acts of USSR Agencies on the Territory of the RSFSR? (establishing that the Union possessed only such powers as had been handed over by the Union republics, and granting the Russian Supreme Soviet or Council of Ministers the ?right to suspend the operation? of Union acts ?if they violate the sovereignty of the Russian Federation?), and of October 31, 1990 ?On Safeguarding the Economic Foundation of the Sovereignty of the RSFSR? (proclaiming that ?the land, its minerals, ... airspace, waters, forests, flora and fauna, and other natural and raw material resources located on the territory of the RSFSR, the resources of the continental shelf and maritime economic zone of the RSFSR,... and artistic and cultural valuables shall be the national wealth of the peoples of the RSFSR?, and declaring that the assets of all ?state enterprises, institutions, organizations, and agencies? on the RSFSR territory are Russian state property), the Declaration of State Sovereignty of Russia ?virtually robbed the USSR of its assets on RSFSR territory... Pulled the rug from underneath of the USSR? (F.J.M. Feldbrugge, Russian Law: the End of the Soviet System and the Role of Law (Series ?Law in Eastern Europe?, No. 45. Dordrecht, Boston, London: Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, 1993), p. 140). On 12 June 1991, Boris Yeltsin was elected the first President of Russia. 8 A complete list of participants in the meeting with President Putin and more information on the forthcoming Civic Forum are available at the Forum's website at www.civilforum.ru. 9 That's indicative that after years of strong hopes (on the verge of wishful thinking) that ?Russia's revolution has by no means ended? (at least three times literally repeated in: ?Forget About Monica, It's Moscow and the Stakes are Global?, Los Angeles Times, 14 August 1998; ?Russia's Crisis. Will Russia Survive Its Economic and Political Crisis??, PBS Online Newshour, 17 September 1998 (reproduced on Johnson's Russia List, #2387, 20 September 1998); ?A Russia Still Redeemable?, Washington Post, 21 September 1998) or that ?Russia is midstream in a social revolution? (?Russia's Revolution Is Not Over?, Christian Science Monitor, 20 September 1999) Michael McFaul finally accepted the inevitable and called his book Russia's Unfinished Revolution (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2001). 10 The report was later published as: Alexander Domrin, ?Issues and Options in the Soviet Transition to the Rule of Law?, 30 Coexistence. A Review of East-West and Development Issues (Martinus Nijhoff Publishers: Dordrecht, Boston, London) 1 (March 1993). 11 Catastrophic consequences of perestroika were recognized by the most of Western scholars already in 1992-93. See, for instance: John Blaney, Mike Gfoeller, ?Lessons from the Failure of Perestroika?, 108 Political Science Quarterly 3 (Autumn, 1993); James Clay Moltz, ?Divergent Learning and the Failed Politics of Soviet Economic Reform?, 45 World Politics 2 (January 1993). 12 This observation applies not only to Russia and other former Soviet republics. In some other areas of the world the use of the ?civil society? formula often lacks any legal meaning and serves as an element of a pseudo-legal justification for purely political goals. That is quite indicative that even ethnic Albanian terrorists and separatists in Macedonia demand recognition of the Albanian language as the second official language of the republic under a pretext of the necessity to ?secure the adequate development of a civil society? and to ?secure the full integration of all citizens of Macedonia into the civil society?. (Vecer, 12 July 2001. Quoted in: Ulrich Buechsenschuetz, ?Macedonia: Speaking a Different Language?, RFE/RL Newsline, 26 July 2001). 13 Plan zakonodatelnikh rabot po tematike ?Grazhdanskoe obschestvo? [The State Duma's Plan of ?Civil Society? Legislative Drafting] and Rekomendatsii parlamentskikh slushaniy ?Rossiysky federalizm i problemy razvitiya grazhdanskogo obschestva [Recommendations of Parliamentary Hearings on Russian Federalism and Problems of Development of Civil Society] are available in the Parliamentary Library under indexes: ??/?M2-3/c?/95-84 and ??/?M2-3/c?/99-552 (respectively). 14 Aleksander Smolar, ?Civil Society After Communism: From Opposition to Atomization?, 7 Journal of Democracy 1 (January 1996), p. 24. Compare to the following observations: ?With all the fuss and noise not a single new idea has come our of Eastern Europe in 1989? (French historian Francois Furet); ?a peculiar characteristic of this revolution, namely its total lack of ideas that are either innovative or oriented towards the future? (Jurgen Habermas) (quoted in: Mary H. Kaldor, ?The Ideas of 1989: The Origins of the Concept of Global Civil Society?, 9 Transnational Law and Contemporary Problems (Fall 1999), p. 475. 15 Aleksander Smolar, op.cit., p. 24. 16 See, for instance, Devyatnadsataya Vsesoyuznaya Konferentsiya KPSS: dokumenty i materialy [The Nineteenth All-Union Conference of the CPSU: Documents and Materials] (Moscow: Politizdat, 1988). 17 It was already in 1993, when Peter Stavrakis, at that time Associate Director of the Kennan Institute, came to a conclusion that ?Bolshevist monetarism adapted quite comfortably to the historical terrain of Soviet experience, as the Gaidar team exhibited the same ideological fervor that had motivated its Leninist precursors?. (Peter Stavrakis, State Building in Post-Soviet Russia: The Chicago Boys and the Decline of Administrative Capacity (Washington: Kennan Institute for Advanced Russian Studies, Occasional Paper # 254. August, October 1993), p. 56). The term ?Bolshevist monetarism? was later transformed into another adequate version: ?market Bolshevism?. (See, for instance: Peter Reddaway & Dmitri Glinski, Tragedy of Russia's Reforms: Market Bolshevism Against Democracy (Washington: U.S. Institute of Peace, 2001)). 18 See K Rossii edinoy, sil'noy, demokraticheskoy, protsvetayuschey. Politicheskaya programma Grazhdanskogo soyuza [Towards Russia United, Strong, Democratic, Prosperous. Political Program of the Civic Union] (Moscow: Civic Union, 1992. V.P. Averchev, A.N. Domrin, A.V. Lukin, etc. Alexander Lukin, ed.) 19 See, for instance, Aleksander Smolar, op.cit., p. 24. 20 Bronislaw Geremek, ?Problems of Postcommunism: Civil Society Then and Now?, 3 Journal of Democracy 2 (April 1992), p. 12; Larry Diamond, ?Rethinking Civil Society: Toward Democratic Consolidation?, 5 Journal of Democracy 3 (July 1994), p. 5). 21 Decree No. 354 of April 3, 1992 ?On the Secretary of State of the Russian Federation?, Decree No. 673 of July 6, 1995 ?On Drafting the Concept of Legal Reform in the Russian Federation?, Decree No. 424 of March 27, 1996 ?On Certain Measures Aimed at Strengthening State Support to Science and Institutions of Higher Education in the Russian Federation?, Decree No. 440 of April 1, 1996 ?On the Concept of Transition of the Russian Federation to Sustainable Development?, Decree No. 803 of June 3, 1996 ?On Basic Provisions of Regional Policy in the Russian Federation?, Decree No. 864 of June 13, 1996 ?On Certain Measures of the State Support to Human Rights Movement in the Russian Federation?, Decree No. 909 of June 15, 1996 ?On Approval of the Concept of State National Policy of the Russian Federation?, Decree No. 1300 of December 17, 1997 ?On Approval of the National Security Concept of the Russian Federation?, Decree No. 1370 of October 15, 1999 ?On Approval of Basic Provisions of the State Policy in the Sphere of Development of Local Self-Government in the Russian Federation?, and Decree No. 24 of January 10, 2000 ?On the National Security Concept of the Russian Federation?. 22 No. 360-?? of July 14, 1992 ?On Ensuring the Activities of the Research Center of Private Law?, and No. 589-?? of December 18, 1996 ?On Support to ?People's House? Public Institutions?. 23 Resolution of the RSFSR Supreme Soviet No.1801-1 of October 24, 1991 ?On the Concept of the RF Judicial System?, and resolutions of the State Duma No. 450-1 ?? of January 13, 1995 ?On a Tentative Program of Legislation-Making? of the State Duma in 1995, and No. 359-II ?? of May 17, 1996 ?On Holding Elections of the RF President in Constitutionally Defined Terms?. 24 Respectively, No. 7-? of April 30, 1997; No. 14-? of November 22, 2000, and No. ??-?40/2488-01 of May 22, 2001. 25 The federal programs were respectively adopted at a session of the RF Government on August 6, 1993 (a month and a half before Yeltsin's coup d'etat in Russia), by Resolution of the RF Government No. 1005 of October 12, 1995, and by Resolution of the RF Government No. 955 of December 14, 2000. 26 No. 939 of September 19, 1995; No. 327 of March 23, 1996; and No. 547 of May 1, 1996. 27 Also see: Stanovleniye institutov grazhdanskogo obschestva [Evolution of Civil Society Institutions. Materials of interregional scientific and practical conference ?Evolution of Civil Society Institutions in Saratov Oblast (1989-1999)?, 20-21 January 2000 (Saratov: Government of Saratov Oblast, Povolzhye Academy of Civil Service, 2000. V.N. Yuzhakov, ed.) 28 See, for instance, Resolution No. 392 of May 4, 1999 ?On the Concept of Moscow Program of Social Development?, and Resolution No. 87-?? of January 23, 2001 ?On the Complex Program of Development and Support of Small Business in Moscow in 2001-2003?. 29 More on the 1999 address of President of Bashkortostan see, for instance: A. Makhmutov, ?Sem' kluchevikh problem Poslaniya-99 Prezidenta Respubliki Bashkortostan Gosudarstvennomu Sobraniyu? [Seven Key Problems of the 1999 Address of President of Bashkortostan to the State Assembly], Ekonomika i upravleniye, No. 3, 1999. P. 3-7. 30 See, for instance, decision of the head of administration of Astrakhan Oblast No. 598-p of May 31, 2001 ?On Organization of a Scientific-Practical Conference 'Civil Society to Children of Russia'? or Resolution of Mayor of Tomsk No. 141 of March 15, 2001 ?On Organization of Electoral Action 'The 19th Wave' Held by the Tomsk Branch of 'Civil Society and Elections' on March 19, 2001?. 31 See Rossiyskaya gazeta, 11 July 2000. 32 The Doctrine of Information Security of the Russian Federation was approved by the RF President on September 9, 2000. 33 The letters and resolution were issued in 1997-2000 and defined such questions as a mandatory minimum of curricula in general schools, etc. 34 Slovar'-spravochnik po rossiyskomu zakonodatel'stvu: terminy, ponyatiya, opredeleniya [A Dictionary & Manual of Russian Legislation: Terms, Concepts, Definitions] (Moscow: Yuridicheskiy dom ?Justitsinform?, 1998. Compiled by L.F. Apt, A.I. Vetrov, etc.) 35 See, for instance: Konstitutsiya Rossiyskoy Federatsii. Kommentariy [Constitution of the Russian Federation. Commentary] (Moscow: Yuridicheskaya literatura, 1994. B.N. Topornin, etc., eds. 624 p.); Konstitutsiya Rossiyskoy Federatsii. Problemniy kommentariy [Constitution of the Russian Federation. A Problematic Commentary] (Moscow: Tsentr konstitutsionnikh issledovaniy MONF, 1997. V.A. Chetvernin, ed. 702 p.). 36 More on philosophic origins of the concept of civil society see: G.F.Slesareva, ?Grazhdanskoe obschestvo v istorii politicheskoy mysli Evropy (on antichnosti do pervoy treti XIX veka)? [Civil Society in History of Political Thought of Europe (from Ancient Times to the First Third of the 19th Century], Mezhdunarodniy istorichesky zhurnal, No. 10, July-August 2000; Yu.M. Reznik, Grazhdanskoe obschestvo kak fenomen civilizatsii. Chast' 1. Ideya grazhdanskogo obschestva v sotsial'noy misli [Civil Society as a Phenomenon of Civilization. Part 1. Civil Society in Social Sciences] (Moscow: Soyuz, 1993. 167 p.); V.V. Vityuk, Stanovlenie ideyi grazhdanskogo obschestva i eyo istoricheskaya evolutsiya [Emergence of the Civil Society Concept and Its Historic Evolution] (Moscow, 1995. 91 p.). 37 See, for instance: Alison Brysk, ?Democratizing Civil Society in Latin America?, July 2000; Joao Carlos Espada, ?Liberalism of Sorts. Review of After 1989: Morals, Revolution and Civil Society, by Ralf Dahrendorf?, October 1998; Michael W. Foley and Bob Edwards, ?The Paradox of Civil Society?, July 1996; William A. Galston, ?Civil Society and the 'Art of Association'?, January 2000; Thomas B. Gold, ?Tiananmen and Beyond: The Resurgence of Civil Society in China?, Winter 1990; E. Gyimah-Boadi, ?Civil Society in Africa?, April 1996; Iliya Harik, ?Rethinking Civil Society: Pluralism in the Arab World?, July 1994; Wilmot James and Daria Caliguire, ?The New South Africa: Renewing Civil Society?, January 1996, Aymen M. Khalifa, ?Reviving Civil Society in Egypt?, July 1995; Laith Kubba, ?Arabs and Democracy: The Awakening of Civil Society?, July 2000; Peter M. Lewis, ?'Civil' and Other Societies. Review of Civil Society and the State in Africa, edited by John W. Harbeson, Donald Rothchild, and Naomi Chazan?, April 1995; Marc F. Plattner, ?The Uses of 'Civil Society'. Review of Conditions of Liberty: Civil Society and Its Rivals, by Ernest Gellner?, October 1995. 38 See Merriam-Webster's Dictionary of Law (Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster, 1996. xx, 634 p.); Ballentine's Law Dictionary, with Pronunciations. [By] James A. Ballantine [1871-1949] / 3d ed., edited by William S. Anderson (Rochester, N.Y.: Lawyers Cooperative Pub. Co, 1969. ix, 1429 p.); Mellinkoff's Dictionary of American Legal Usage (By David Mellinkoff. St Paul, Minn.: West Pub. Co., 1992. x, 703 p.); Brian A. Garner's A Dictionary of Modern Legal Usage (2nd ed. New York : Oxford University Press, 1995. xxvi, 953 p.); Burton's Legal Thesaurus (By William C. Burton. 3rd ed. New York: Macmillan Library Reference, 1998. xix, 1212 p.); Words & Phrases. Permanent Edition. 1658 to Date (St. Paul, Minn.: West Publ. Go., 1964); Black's Law Dictionary (7th ed. / Bryan A. Garner, editor in chief. St. Paul, Minn.: West Group, 1999. xxiii, 1738 p.) 39 In Geremek's words, ?We don't need to define [civil society]. We see and feel it? (quoted in Flora Lewis, ?Civil Society: Its Limits and Needs?, International Herald Tribune, 30 September 1989. According to Lebedev, ?Specialists in political science refuse to draw a clear-cut distinction between [civil society and law-governed state]; they consider it a difficult task. As a lawyer, I find it an irrelevant task as well? (See V.M. Lebedev, ?O systeme grazhdanskogo obschestva Rossii?, Grazhdanskoe obschestvo i regional'noe razvitie [?On the System of Civil Society in Russia?, Civil Society and Regional Development] (Scientific and Practical Conference, 22 April 1994, Tomsk. Tomsk Oblast Duma & Tomsk State University, 1994. E.I. Chernyak, ed.), p. 16). A former prime minister of the Czech Republic V?clav Klaus also confesses that he find the term civil society ?superfluous?, a ?hollow phrase? and claims that he does ?not think that a civil society is different from a democratic society?. (See ?Civil Society After Communism: Rival Visions. V?clav Havel and V?clav Klaus with Commentary by Petr Pithart?, 7 Journal of Democracy 1 (January 1996), p. 18). 40 M. Steven Fish, ?Rethinking Civil Society: Russia's Fourth Transition?, 5 Journal of Democracy 3 (July 1994), p. 41. 41 Alexander Lukin, ?Forcing the Pace of Democratization?, 10 Journal of Democracy 2 (April 1999), p. 39. 42 Especially after adoption of the 1961 CPSU Program proclaiming that the Soviet society had entered the stage of ?developed socialism?. 43 Philosophsky slovar' [Philosophical Dictionary] (Moscow: Politizdat, 1975. 3rd edition. M.M. Rozenthal, ed.), p. 93). 44 See S.S. Alekseev, Sotsial'naya tsennost' prava v sovetskom obschestve [Social Value of Law in the Soviet Society] (Moscow: 1971), p. 193); A.A. Mishin, Tsentral'niye organy vlasti burzhuaznikh gosudarstv [The Central Organs of Power in Bourgeois Countries] (Moscow: Izdatel'stvo MGU, 1972), p. 10; V.N. Danilenko, Deklaratsiya prav i real'nost'. K 200-letiyu Deklaratsii prav cheloveka i grazhdanina [Declaration of Rights and Reality: 200th Anniversary of Adoption of the Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen] (Moscow: Mezhdunarodniye otnosheniya, 1989), p. 55. 45 Yeltsin's rule was characterized by U.S. Representative Christopher Smith (R-NJ) as a kleptocratic regime ?masquerading as a democracy? (quoted on Johnson's Russia List, # 2277, 22 July 1998). The word ?masquerade? is apparently very dear to the hearts of American observers. Compare, for instance, to: ?Yeltsin, a Soviet usurper masquerading as a democrat? (Anne Williamson, ?An Inconvenient History?, Johnson's Russia List, # 3477, 1 September 1999). As a reminder, just several years ago Yeltsin's opponents in the Russian Supreme Soviet were defamed as ?communist fascists masquerading as parliamentarians? (Thomas Oliphant, ?Another Clash with the Beast?, The Boston Globe, 6 October 1993). 46 As Eric Kraus, Chief Strategist of Nikoil Capital Markets, correctly observed: ?In the early 1990s, disastrously incompetent economic advice from Western experts was eagerly accepted by the successive (and no less incompetent) transition governments? (Eric Kraus, ?On the Barricades: Renegotiating the Paris Club?, Johnson's Russia List, #5053, 26 January 2001; available at www.cdi.org/russia/johnson/5053.html). More on Yeltsin's kleptocracy and the U.S. role in its creation, see: Russia's Road to Corruption. How the Clinton Administration Exported Government Instead of Free Enterprise and Failed the Russian People (U.S. House of Representatives, Washington, D.C. Speaker's Advisory Group on Russia. Christopher Cox, Chairman. September 2000), available at: www.house.gov/republican-policy/russia/home.html. 47 Electoral commissions were formed for each constituency by the corresponding Soviets (Councils) to supervise and direct the election of deputies to the USSR Congress of People's Deputies in 1989. They had significant powers to control the electoral process, especially at the stage of registration of candidate deputies. In cases when there were more than two nominees, Art.38 of the USSR Election Law allowed electoral commissions to hold preelection meetings, question the candidates, and then eliminate even properly nominated individuals. 48 Laws ?On the President of the RSFSR? and ?On the Election of the President of the RSFSR? were adopted on April 24, 1991. Subsequently, the fourth CPD session (May 21-25, 1991) introduced a new chapter (Chapter 13-1) to the Constitution instituting presidency in Russia. 49 Yeltsin was so sure in his victory that before the elections he sent Andrei Kolossovsky to Washington to start preparations for his first visit to the USA as the Russian President; the visit began some ten days after the elections. 50 ?NDI Calls for Democratic Development Assistance to the USSR?. (Senate - September 27, 1990), Congressional Record, 27 September 1990. S14080. 51 ?The New Soviet Union? -- Hon. Dan Schaeffer (Extension of Remarks - September 11, 1991), Congressional Record, 11 September 1990. E2977. 52 Ruslan Khasbulatov was elected to the Russian Parliament as a Yeltsin supporter. Upon Yeltsin's suggestion, he was elected First Deputy Chairman of the Russian Supreme Soviet as a representative of one of the ethnic minorities (Chechen), which had greatly suffered under Stalin. Even when six of the seven leaders of the Supreme Soviet in February 1991 denounced Yeltsin for his arbitrary methods of ruling, Khasbulatov continued to support him. When Yeltsin was elected President, he personally named Khasbulatov as his successor. Many deputies refused to vote for him at the fifth CPD session in July 1991 because of his lack of independence, as they suspected, from Yeltsin. When Khasbulatov was finally elected Chairman of the Supreme Soviet in October 1991, it was interpreted as a Yeltsin victory. 53 Anders ?slund, ?The Making of Economic Policy in 1989 & 1990?, in Milestones in Glasnost & Perestroika. The Economy (Washington: The Brookings Institution, 1991. Ed A.Hewett & Victor H. Winston, eds.), p. 346. 54 David Remnick, Resurrection: The Struggle for a New Russia (New York: Random House, 1997), p. 71. 55 See ?Pozitsiya? [The Position], Russky obozrevatel' (Moscow), No. 1, 1995. P. 22. 56 See Human Rights and Legal Reform in the Russian Federation (New York: Lawyers Committee for Human Rights, March 1993), p. 45. As a result of elections at the local level, held simultaneously with the Russian parliamentary elections of 1990, radical democrats scored particularly impressive victories in the City Councils of Moscow and Leningrad: candidates from Democratic Russia bloc won 292 out of 465 seats in Mossoviet, and 355 out of 400 in Lensoviet. Never again Russian radicals would get such results. 57 Judith Devlin, The Rise of the Russian Democrats: The Causes and Consequences of the Elite Revolution (Aldershot, England: Edward Elgar, 1995. Series ?Studies of Communism in Transition?), p. 152-153. 58 Anders ?slund, ?Russia's Success Story?, 73 Foreign Affairs 5 (September-October 1994), p. 60. 59 In an assessment of an unbiased American scholar, in September 1993, ?with a stroke of the pen, Yeltsin had wiped out Russia's embryonic and uneasy separation of powers. Mao had bested Montesquieu? (Robert Sharlet, ?Russian Constitutional Crisis: Law and Politics Under Yeltsin?, 9 Post-Soviet Politics 4 (October-December 1993), p. 327). ?It was a highly risky decision, since it was plainly illegal?, wrote a British reporter (Jonathan Steele, ?Inside Story: Chaos Theory?, The Guardian, 13 November 1993.). ?Rarely in history there has been a coup prepared so ineptly and so openly. Yeltsin violated the constitution so flagrantly that there could be no talk of his having 'made a mistake' or 'exceeding his powers'?, commented a deputy of the Moscow City Council (Boris Kagarlitsky, Square Wheels. How Russian Democracy Got Derailed (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1994), p.197). 60 Ibid. 61 Vladimir Shlapentokh named that catastrophic defeat of pro-Yeltsin ?reformers? and a similarly catastrophic impotence of pollsters in predicting the electoral outcome in December of 1993 ?the Russian disaster?: ?The results of the election shocked... the West, a reaction similar to that which occurred with the Sandinista's defeat in the Nicaraguan election of 1990, only with a remarkable difference: in one case, the West was gloomy, in the other, delighted? (Vladimir Shlapentokh, ?Poll Review: The 1993 Russian Election Polls?, 58 Public Opinion Quarterly (Winter 1984), p. 579, 585. 62 See The Weekly Standard, 19 January 1998. 63 This episode was also described by Peter Reddaway and Dmitri Glinski in their book Tragedy of Russia's Reforms: Market Bolshevism Against Democracy. When one of the authors challenged ?slund on his claim, he did not reply. 64 It's a common problem of Western experts of Russia that facts about Russian society are sometimes supplanted by perceptions, which in their turn are often based on myths, cliches, or lies. (The title of Transparency International's Corruption Perceptions Index, for instance, openly indicates that it's ?based on the perceptions of business people and risk analysts?) (emphasis added. - AD). A typical illustration of such an observation is a response to a question asked by an American businessman and scholar at a high-profile academic conference in the U.S.: do you think that a ?well-connected Russian? is likely to be found guilty of embezzlement from a foreign owned firm? ?None of the conference participants, - wrote the author, - volunteered the opinion that justice would prevail?. (Ronald R. Pope, ?The Rule of Law and Russian Culture - Are They Compatible??, 7 Demokratizatsiya (Spring 1999), p. 204; emphasis added. - AD). How reliable and convincing is such ?opinion?? Why is it that none of the conference participants expressed a different point of view? Not a single person had the slightest doubt and raised his hand to indicate it? Why such ?opinion? is so far away not only from the views of Russian lawyers (who could be accused of being biased and non-objective), but from the position of Peter Solomon, probably the most eloquent contemporary foreign expert on the Russian judicial system, who in his latest publications has been describing ?positive developments? in the Russian legal and judicial sphere (including the spread of ?constitutional litigation and the framing of issues in constitutional terms?, the ?dramatic expansion of legal education?, and the ?success of judges in creating their own organizations?), asserting that, ?despite the disappointments of radical reformers, court reform in Russia is not dead?, and insisting that, for instance, ?the decisions by three different sets of judges in the Nikitin case stand as testimony to the reality of change in the administration of justice in Russia?? (See, for instance: Peter H. Solomon, Jr., ?The Persistence of Judicial Reform in Contemporary Russia?, 6 East European Constitutional Review 4 (Fall 1997)); Peter H. Solomon, Jr. & Todd S. Foglesong, ?The Procuracy and the Courts in Russia: A New Relationship??, 9 East European Constitutional Review 4 (Fall 2000)). Reliability of the conference participants' ?opinion? becomes even more questionable, because in another article the same R. Pope wrote about taking to Russian court someone Veksler, a former manager of his ?model American home in Vladimir? and a daughter of an ?influential local official?, on charges of embezzlement. Despite Veksler's influential ?connections? and presence of ?one of the most expensive defense attorneys? in the city, the Vladimir district court found her guilty of the ?theft of an exceptionally large sum of money? and sentenced her to 5 years in prison. The Vladimir Oblast court upheld the decision, and the Russian Supreme Court found no legal basis for it to review the lower courts' decisions. (See Ronald R. Pope, ?An Illinois Yankee in Tsar Yeltsin's Court: Justice in Russia?, 7 Demokratizatsiya (Fall 1999)). 65 See, for instance: A.S. Avtonomov, ?Pravovoe oformlenie grazhdanskogo obschestva v Rossii? [Legal Regulations of Civil Society in Russia], Predstavitel'naya vlast': monitoring, analiz, informatsiya, No. 1, 1995, p. 73-88; E.Yu. Dogadaylo, ?Grazhdanskoe obschestvo i gosudarstvennaya vlast'? [Civil Society and State Power], Predstavitel'naya vlast': monitoring, analiz, informatsiya, No. 2, 1996, p. 48-56; V.V. Lapaeva, ?Obschestvennoe mnenie kak institut grazhdanskogo obschestva? [Public Opinion as an Institution of Civil Society], Advokat, No. 3, 1997, p. 69-81; V.V. Lapaeva, ?Obschestvennoe mnenie i zakonodatel'stvo? [Public Opinion and Legislation], Sotsiologicheskie issledovania, No. 9, 1997, p. 16-27; Yu. Nisnevich, ?Problemy vzaimodeystviya obschestva i vlasti v Rossii? [Problems of Interrelations Between Society and Power in Russia], Informatsionniye resursy Rossii, No. 4, 1997, p. 6-10. 66 Larry Diamond, ?Civil Society and Democratic Development: Why the Public Matters?, in: Democratization: Does the Public Matter? (Papers from the 1996 Distinguished International Lecture Series. Cheri Long, Douglas Midgett, Issue Editors. Center for International and Comparative Studies, The University of Iowa, 1999), p. 6. According to Larry Diamond's more detailed definition, civil society is the ?realm of autonomous, voluntary associations that pursue limited ends in the public sphere, self-generating, (largely) self-supporting, autonomous from the state, and bound by a legal order or [a] set of shared rules? (Larry Diamond, ?Rethinking Civil Society: Toward Democratic Consolidation?, p. 5.) 67 Quoted in: Susan Shell, ?Conceptions of Civil Society. Review of The Idea of Civil Society, by Adam B. Seligman and of Civil Society and Political Theory, by Jean L. Cohen and Andrew Arato?, 5 Journal of Democracy 3 (July 1994), p. 124). 68 See, for instance, Grigory N. Manov, ?Vstuplenie?, Grazhdanskoe obschestvo i pravovoe gosudarstvo: predposylki formirovaniya, [?Introduction?, Civil Society and Law-Governed State: Prerequisites of Creation] (Moscow: IGiP AN SSSR, 1991. G.N. Manov, ed.), p. 5-6. 69 Pravovoe gosudarstvo v Rossii: zamysel i realnost' (k desyatiletiu perestroyki). Krugliy stol yuristov, 19.04.1995 [Rule of Law in Russia: Concept and Reality (the 10th Anniversary of Perestroika). A Roundtable of Lawyers, 19 April 1995] (Moscow: Gorbachev-Fund, ?April-85?, 1995), p. 16. 70 Oleg Rumyantsev, Osnovy konstitutsionnogo stroya Rossii [The Basics of the Constitutional System of Russia] (Moscow, 1995), p. 76. Also see: Oleg Rumyantsev, ?Stanovlenie grazhdanskogo obschestva v Vostochnoy Evrope?, Sovremenniy sotsializm i problemy perestroyki [?Emergence of Civil Society in Eastern Europe?, Modern Socialism and Problems of Perestroika] (Moscow: IEMSS AN SSSR, 1989), p. 6-31. 71 See, for instance, Z.M. Chernilovsky ?Grazhdanskoye obschestvo: opyt issledovaniya? [Civil Society: An Attempt of a Research], Gosudarstvo i pravo, No. 6, 1992, p. 142-151; O.V. Martyshin, ?Neskol'ko tezisov o perspektivakh grazhdanskogo obschestva v Rossii? [Several Observations on Perspectives of Civil Society in Russia], Gosudarstvo i pravo, No. 5, 1996, pp. 3-13. 72 M. Steven Fish, ?Rethinking Civil Society: Russia's Fourth Transition?, p. 34. 73 Robert Sharlet, ?Citizen and State under Gorbachev and Yeltsin?, in Developments in Russian and Post-Soviet Politics (White, Pravda & Gitelman, eds. 1994), pp. 128. Yeltsin's attempt to block any public discussion of the Draft Constitution was characterized by British scholars as ?hardly a sound precedent of democratic practice? (Stephen White and Ronald J. Hill, ?Russia, Former Soviet Union, and Eastern Europe?, in The Referendum Experience in Europe (London: Macmillan Press Ltd., 1996. Michael Gallagher and Pie Vincenzo Uleri, eds.), p. 163). 74 In an alarming conclusion of an American scholar, Yeltsin ?demonstrates how attempts to copy the American system are likely to end up in dictatorship, as they have so often in Latin America? (Robert V. Daniels, ?Yeltsin's No Jefferson. More Like Pinochet?, The New York Times, 2 October 1993, p.23). 75 Richard Rose, ?Rethinking Civil Society: Postcommunism and the Problem of Trust?, 5 Journal of Democracy 3 (July 1994), p. 19. 76 A slightly smaller percentage of supporters of Unity - 41 percent - explain their choice by the?state-oriented? policy of the party. 77 Otnoshenie naseleniya k federal'nim zakonam i organam gosudarstvennoy vlasti [Attitude of Population to Federal Laws and Bodies of State Power] (Institute of Legislation and Comparative Law under the Russian Government (Moscow), July 2000), p. 11. 78 Nikolay Popov, ?Kakaya vera nas spasyot? [What Faith Will Save Us], Novoe vremya, No. 2918, 14 October 2001; also available at http://www.newtimes.ru/newtimes/oio.asp?n=2918. 79 ?Civil Society After Communism: Rival Visions. V?clav Havel and V?clav Klaus with Commentary by Petr Pithart?, 7 Journal of Democracy 1 (January 1996), p. 18). 80 B.G. Mogilnitsky, ?Grazhdanskoe obschestvo i istoricheskoe soznanie?, Grazhdanskoe obschestvo i regional'noe razvitie [Civil Society and Historic Consciousness?, Civil Society and Regional Development. Scientific and Practical Conference, 22 April 1994, Tomsk] (Tomsk Oblast Duma & Tomsk State University, 1994. E.I. Chernyak, ed.), p. 6.) 81 In Kartashkin's words, ?Many human rights activists, particularly in the capital, unfortunately continue their destructive struggle -- they have not forgotten their dissident past, although the situation has totally changed?. (Interfax, 22 June 2001). 82 Russian radical liberals are notorious for their Russophobic diatribes and allegations. In a typical statement of Sergei Kovalev, for instance, it's not Yeltsin's government (which was overwhelmingly supported by Kovalev in 1990-1994, when he first chaired a parliamentary committee and then a presidential commission), that bears the main responsibility for the war in Chechnya, but ?the traditional Russian state? (emphasis added. - AD). In Kovalev's words, the Russian state is a ?clumsy, unintelligent monster? which ?is inherently incapable of properly evaluating situations,... cannot live without using force,... does not know how to resolve problems bloodlessly, for blood is its favorite food? (emphasis added. - AD). According to Kovalev, it was not Yeltsin's government of ?reformers? (like Kovalev himself), who multiplied endless problems of Russia, but ?the traditional Russian state? itself. The state which ?does not really know how to resolve problems at all. It only knows how to create them? (Sergei Kovalev, ?Russia After Chechnya?, The New York Review of Books, 17 July 1997, p. 28). After the crushing blow to radical ?democrats? at the December 1993 parliamentary elections Yuri Afanasyev concluded that ?support for communist and fascist blocs? should be explained by ?the essential nature of the Russian people? (Yuri N. Afanasyev, ?Russian Reform Is Dead?, 73 Foreign Affairs 2 (March/April 1994), p. 22). Why didn't Afanasyev think that it was because of this ?communist and fascist nature? of the Russian people, that Russians voters twice elected him, first to the USSR parliament (from my electoral district in Noginsky raion of Moscow Oblast), and then to the parliament of the Russian Federation? But when he and other radicals lost people's trust, and those very people, who voted for Afanasyev in 1989 and 1990, changed their mind and voted for his opponents, he began saying that we, Russians, are actually natural born fascists. Another radical politician and leader of the scandalous Democratic Union Valeriya Novodvorskaya argues that ?Russia is not only a country of fools, but a country of bastards too?. She regrets that Russia ?has never been smashed. Completely smashed, like Hitler?. In her words, ?Gaidar is a nice man... Yeltsin is Russia's fire-bird. And we won't let her fly away!? (Compare to ?slund's statements: Gaidar is ?one of the great historical personalities of our time?; ?President Yeltsin is Russia's last best hope? (see: The Economic and Political State of Russia. A Presentation by Yegor Gaidar, January 20, 2000 (Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Russian and Eurasian Program, Vol. 2, No. 2, January 24, 2000); Jeremy Weinberg, ?1996: Reforms Iced, Market Bulls Ran Anyway?, The St. Petersburg Times, 20-26 January 1997)). Novodvorskaya's credo was honestly expressed in the following words: ?If in order to wipe out Communists, Fascists and Imperialists, it will be necessary to wipe out from earth (steret' s litsa zemli) this country with all its population, we will do that without any hesitation (my ne drognem)!? No surprise that in Novodvorskaya's opinion the ?best day in our history of the 20th Century? was ?the morning of October 4 [1993], when the White House was burning?. (Quoted in: ?Pozitsiya? [Position], Russky obozrevatel', No. 1, 1995. P. 22). During the 1996 and 2000 presidential election campaigns Novodvorskaya made a major disservice to Yavlinsky when she appealed to Russian ?democrats? to support him. It was a sufficient reason for many of us not to give him our votes. 83 Polit.ru, 11 July 2001. 84 See Alexander Verkhovsky, ?Operation Civic Forum?, 2 RFE/RL (Un)Civil Societies 30 (1 August 2001). 85 In a similar case, the Moscow Oblast court on September 27, 2001, refused to agree to an appeal by the RF Ministry of Justice to disband the National Bolshevik Party headed by a detained writer and a former Soviet emigre in France and U.S.A. Eduard Limonov (Interfax, 28 September 2001). The refusal underlines a growing independence and nonpartisanship of the Russian courts. 86 See Larry Diamond, ?Civil Society and Democratic Development: Why the Public Matters?, p. 7. 87 As of 1 September 2001, state property in Russia includes 9,855 federally-owned state unitary enterprises, 34,868 institutions and 4,308 share packages. The share packages differ in size. In 84 joint-stock companies the Russian Federation owns 100 percent of their authorized capitals, in 605 - more than 50%, and in 1,719 - less than 25% (?Na prodazhu? [For Sale], Argumenty i fakty , No. 39, 26 September 2001, also available at http://www.aif.ru/aif/1092/06_03.php). 88 Ibid. 89 Polit.ru, April 21, 2000. 90 Grigoriy Yavlinsky, ?Liberalizm dlya vsekh? [Liberalizm for All], Obschaya gazeta, No. 26, 28 June 2001; also available at www.og.ru/archieve/2001/26/mat/mn1.shtml. 91 Dmitry Furman, ?Kogda vozmozhen liberalizm dlya vsyekh? [When Liberalism for All Is Possible], Obschaya gazeta, No. 28, 13 July 2001; also available at www.og.ru/archieve/2001/28/mat/mn1.shtml. 92 11% of the respondents were undecided. Activities in the spheres of culture, education and sports, and work with children and teenagers attract 4% of the respondents. 3% of those polled were prepared to work with charitable organizations that give social aid to elderly and lonely people, homeless children and low-income families. 2% of the respondents would like to join environmental protection organizations and take part in city beautification projects (planting trees and flowers, and cleaning courtyards). The same percentage of the respondents said they would like to work with trade unions and with war veterans' organizations. And one percent of those polled would prefer to join hobby groups, for instance societies of beer-lovers, car drivers or dog owners. (Interfax, 2 July 2001). 93 The report is available at www.unicef-icdc.org/presscentre/presskit/monee7/youth. 94 Richard Rose, ?Rethinking Civil Society: Postcommunism and the Problem of Trust?, p. 25-26. Russia is not unique in this respect. Rose finds a ?similar level of distrust? in the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, and Poland (p. 25). A new study also finds that the ?distribution of attitudes toward democracy within the Russian population is not so very different from many other countries in transition? (Timothy J. Colton, Michael McFaul, Are Russians Undemocratic? (Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, No. 20, June 2001), p. 21). Overall, the results of Colton-McFaul's study corroborate conclusions of a group of Iowan scholars made several years ago (based on 600 completed interviews in 1990, 1,400 in 1991, 1,300 in 1992 and 1,750 in 1995) that Russian legal values are close or similar to those in other former Soviet republics or in the U.S.: ?The Russian mass public is not... hostile to the rule of law... We discover more support for legal procedure [in Russia] than might have been expected... On the whole Russians show greater support for legality than do Lithuanians... We find American and Russian publics to have a very similar proportion of those willing to jettison suspects' rights in the name of fighting crime? (William M. Reisinger, Arthur H. Miller, and Vicki L. Hesli, ?Russians and the Legal System: Mass Views and Behaviour in the 1990s?, 13 Journal of Communist Studies and Transition Politics 3 (September 1997), p. 24, 25, 45; also see: William M. Reisinger, Arthur H. Miller, and Vicki L. Hesli, ?Political Values in Russia, Ukraine and Lithuania: Sources and Implications for Democracy?, 24 British Journal of Political Science (1994), p. 183-223; Arthur H. Miller, Vicki L. Hesli, and William M. Reisinger, ?Comparing Citizen and Elite Belief Systems in Post-Soviet Russia and Ukraine?, 59 Public Opinion Quarterly (Spring 1995), p. 1-40; William M. Reisinger, ?Legal Orientations and the Rule of Law in Post-Soviet Russia?, Constitutional Dialogues in Comparative Perspective (London: McMillan; NY: St. Martin's Press, 1999. Sally J. Kenney, William M. Reisinger and John C. Reitz, eds.), p. 172-192). 95 See Nikolay Popov, ?Fantazii na temu demokratii? [Democratic Fantasies], Novoe vremya, No. 34, 2001; also available at www.newtimes.ru/oio.asp?n=34. 96 The poll was held in early April 2000 in early April in 94 urban and rural areas of Russia's 40 regions in every ?economic-geographical area? of the country. The results were reported by Interfax, 19 April 2000. 97 The analytical report was prepared for the Russian Government and not for publication; on file with the author. 98 A later opinion poll (conducted by the All-Russia Center for Public Opinion Studies in mid-January 2001) indicated similar results showing that 75 percent of Russians believe that in historical terms the Yeltsin era did Russia more bad than good (with 15 percent who don't think so). See Strana.ru, 1 February 2001. 99 The poll represented Russia's adult population (18 and above) according to gender, age, level of education, location, and type of populated area; with possible error of about 3.8%. The results are reported on Polit.ru, 21 April 2000. 100 Interfax, 12 July 2001. 101 A recent survey of 400 journalists across Russia conducted by the Institute of Sociology of the Russian Academy of Sciences found that 30 percent of them had inserted hidden advertising into stories ?regularly? or ?occasionally?. Overall, 67 percent of journalists had done it ?more than once?. ?Journalists... themselves have destroyed their image as defenders of liberties?, admits political editor of St. Petersburg-based daily Nevskoe vremya (quoted in Galina Stolyarova, ?Poll Highlights Media's Weakness?, The St. Petersburg Times, 28 August 2001). Also available at www.sptimesrussia.com/archive/times/699/top/t_4459.htm. 102 See Oleg Poptsov's interview in: Alexander Gubanov, ?Televidenie eto mekhanizm upravleniya stranoy. Mekhanizm upravleniya stranoy nuzhdaetsya v remonte? [Television is a Mechanism of the Country Control. The Mechanism of the Country Control Needs to Be Repaired], Obschaya gazeta, No. 31, 26 July 2001. P. 6. Also available at www.og.ru/archieve/2001/31/mat/i2.shtml. 103 Yuri Levada, ?Sotsvopros? [A Social Question], Novaya gazeta, No. 53, 30 July 2001; also available at 2001.novayagazeta.ru/nomer/2001/53n/n53n-s22.shtml An earlier opinion poll (held in March 2001) had similar results: 57 percent of Russians favored reimposing some kind of censorship over the media, up from 48 percent in November 2000. The number of those opposed to censorship dropped from 38 to 33 percent during the same interval. (See RFE/RL Security Watch, 9 April 2001, quoting Gleb Pavlovsky's Public Opinion Foundation website www.fom.ru). 104 In Solzhenitsyn's words, ?Sometimes, capital punishment is needed for the sake of saving the nation and the state. In Russia, matters stand this way at the moment?. 105 Interfax, 28 June 2001. 106 Trud, January 6, 2000. 107 Harold J. Berman, Justice in the USSR: An Interpretation of Soviet Law (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1963 2nd ed. x, 450 p.), p. 5; Harold J. Berman, Justice in Russia: An Interpretation of Soviet Law (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1950. X, 322 p.), p. 3. 108 Legislative euphoria had some positive effects at the early stage of legal reforms in the USSR. For example, from June 1987 to the autumn of 1988 only, approximately 1,200 federal and 7,500 republican decrees that hindered the Soviet transition to the rule of law were repealed. In the same period, more than 33,000 federal and 80,000 republican ministerial and departmental rules and regulations concerning economic and social relations in the country were abolished. (See, for instance: Alexei Klishin, ?Economic Reform and Contract Law in the USSR?, Columbia Journal of Transnational Law, 1990, p. 253.) 109 See, for instance: Kathy Lally, ?Pardons Turn Rare in Putin's Russia?, The Baltimore Sun, 14 June 2001; Masha Lipman, ?How Putin Pardons?, The Washington Post, 17 July 2001; Sophie Lambroschini, ?Russia: Pardon System Plays Mercy Role Amid A Cruel Society?, RFE/RL, 23 February 2001; available at www.rferl.org/nca/features/2001/02/23022001115056.asp. 110 Personally, it always bothered me why in nearly all of his TV and newspaper interviews Pristavkin always speaks about Yelena Kozlova who stole a goat worth $20 and was sentenced to five and a half years in prison, as if she was the only one pardoned by his commission. Apparently, he told the same story to Kathy Lally whose article in The Baltimore Sun starts with a description of that really outrageous and intolerable case. But what about the remaining 12,000 pardons a year? The above-mentioned figures give the answer. 111 The categorization of crimes in the Russian Criminal Code is more complex than in the felony-misdemeanor division in the U.S. The four categories of crimes and their maximum punishments are: minor crime (up to 2 years in prison); moderately serious crime (up to 5 years in prison); serious crime (up to 10 years in prison); very serious crime (over 10 years in prison, life imprisonment or death, not implemented since Russia's admittance to the Council of Europe in February 1996). (See, for instance: Gennady M. Danilenko & William Burnham, Law and Legal System of the Russian Federation (Juris Publishing, 2000. 2nd ed.); William Butler, Russian Law (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999). 112 Russian press wrote about defense attorneys who proudly advertise their service saying that they have an access to the Clemency Committee, but the fee for that service is high (dorogo stoit). (See Marina Gridneva, ?Nasil'nik mil ne budet?, Moscovskii komsomolets, 9 July 2001). 113 The list could be easily compiled by the Pristavkin's commission and included Marc Rich, a tax fraud racketeer and fugitive from the law, Susan Rosenberg, an urban terrorist, John Deutch, an ex-Director of CIA; Henry G. Cisneros, a former Secretary of Housing and Urban Development; Susan H. McDougal, an old business partner of the Clintons and their accomplice in the Whitewater scandal; Patricia Hearst, a heroine of Soviet propaganda in the mid-1970s; and Clinton's half-brother Roger, who had pleaded guilty to distributing cocaine in Arkansas; although not an Israeli spy Jonathan Pollard. 114 Ronald Reagan, for instance, pardoned 406 people in 8 years. 70 people were pardoned, only one commutation granted, and 1,554 executive clemency applications denied in 1989-1993. (See remarkable studies by P.S. Ruckman, Jr. of clemency in the U.S.: ?Executive Clemency in the United States: Origins, Development, and Analysis (1900-1993)?, 27 Presidential Studies Quarterly (Spring 1997); ?Keys to Clemency Reform: Knowledge, Transparency?, Jurist, 7 March 2001; available at jurist.law.pitt.edu/pardonop5.htm). A complete list of executive clemency applications of 1953-1999 is available at www.rvc.cc.il.us/faclink/pruckman/pardoncharts/jopdata.htm. 115 See Marina Gridneva, op.cit. It's amazing that criticism of Putin's decision to improve the effectiveness of the Clemency Commission's work comes mainly from the U.S., a country having the largest prison population in the world (approximately 2 million in 2001; twice bigger than in Russia), executing somebody every five days on average, and, according to the latest Amnesty International report, continuing ?to violate international standards by using the death penalty against the mentally impaired, individuals who were under 18 at the time of the crime, and defendants who received inadequate legal representation?. (Amnesty International Report 2000; available at web.amnesty.org/web/ar2001.nsf/webamericas? Also see another Amnesty International report: U.S.A.: Failing the Future. Death Penalty Developments, March 1998 - March 2000; available at web.amnesty.org/ai.nsf/Index/AMR510032000?) Between 1977 and 1999, the U.S. state authorities commuted only 40 death sentences on ?humanitarian grounds? nationwide. (See U.S.A: Killing Without Mercy: Clemency Procedures in Texas (Amnesty International, 1 June 1999; available at www.web.amnesty.org/ai.nsf/index/AMR510851999). 116 According to the latest poll conducted by ROMIR-Gallup International, 45.3 percent of Russians do not trust their government comparing to 45.1 percent who do (Interfax, 30 August 2001). In Eugeny Primakov's words, ?the hardest consequence and lesson of the crisis [of August, 1998] has been not the fall of production or the fall of the ruble, but a total crisis of trust? (ITAR-TASS, 4 December 1998). 117 The definition is used in the publications of economist Alexander Anisimov and political scientist Alexander Kalinin concluding that Yeltsin's regime cannot be characterized as an ?occupation regime? because the term ?occupation? still presumes a certain degree of care and protection. A more adequate definition of the rule of Yeltsin ?reformers? is a ?liquidation regime?, i.e. a regime liquidating the Russian state, people and culture. (From an interview with A. Kalinin, Moscow, 4 May 2001). 118 Russia's industrial product has plummeted about 50 percent. Back in 1941-45, when Hitler's troops were occupying about half of the European part of the USSR, when more than 1,700 cities and 70,000 villages were destroyed in warfare, and about 26.5 million Soviet citizens lost their lives, the reduction of the Soviet industrial product was only about 30 percent. 119 The conclusion belongs to Murray Feshbach, former branch chief of at the U.S. Bureau of the Census and a research professor of Georgetown University, now a Senior Scholar at the Wilson Center. (See The Washington Post, 12 July 1995). Another American scholar draws our attention to an important detail: ?Remember: the Russian crisis has erupted in a country in a formal state of peace. In origin, duration, and character, Russia's mortality crisis is fundamentally different from those others?, like in Spain (1936-39), Western Germany (1943-46), Japan (1944-45), and South Korea (1950-53), which had ?record cruel plunges in countrywide life expectancy around the middle of the twentieth century. Merely to note those dates, however, is to see a contrast between these cases and the case of Russia. The mortality crises in Spain, Western Germany, Japan, and South Korea were direct consequences of wars or civil war?. (See Nicholas Eberstadt, ?Russia: Too Sick to Matter??, Policy Review (The Heritage Foundation), No. 95, June & July 1999; available at www.policyreview.com/jun99/eberstadt.html). 120 In the beginning of 2000, Anders ?slund, an economic advisor to the Russian Government in 1991-1994, made a new attempt to somehow beautify the results of ?reforms? and his work in Russia. According to him, ?a frequently cited statistic is that the average life expectancy for Russian men has declined [from 63.9 years in 1990. - AD] to 57.7 years. But that was in 1994. After that, the figure increased... to 61.8 years in 1998? (Anders ?slund, ?Underselling Russia's Economy?, New York Times, 18 January 2000; also available at www.ceip.org/files/Publications/Underselling.asp). The attempt was short-lived. According to the RF Statistics Committee average life expectancy for Russian men in 1999 was 58.9 years, one of the lowest index among the developed countries of the world (see A. Mikhailova, ?Statistika vozrastnoy struktury naseleniya Rossii? [Statistics on the Age Structure of the Russian Population], Ekonomika i zhizn', No. 7, 2001). What was even more important for Russian demography is that in 1999 Russia's shrinking population took its largest post-Soviet drop, with the reduction of population by 0.49 percent or 716,900 (to 145.6 million). It's indicative, that in his latest article (which is partly based on his piece ?Underselling Russia's Economy?) ?slund describes 10 ?myths? about the current socio-economic situation in Russia, but no longer repeats his assertions about growing life expectancy in Russia. Instead of it, he takes comfort in explaining the demographic catastrophe in the country by two factors: all-European tendency of low birth rates and Russian high death rates. (See ?Think Again, Russia!?, Foreign Policy, July-August 2001; also see his ?Mif o kollapse proizvodstva posle krusheniya kommunizma?, Voprosy ekonomiki, No. 7, 2001, p. 115-138). The second factor is certainly true, although it is not limited to the generation of those who were born in 1930-1945 only, as ?slund says. But the first factor is another deception, because low birth rates in Russia and Europe have different reasons, and don't mean much by themselves. What matters is an enormous reduction of births in Russia (from about 2.5 million in 1987 to about 1.25 million in 1999) with a similarly enormous growth of deaths (from about 1.55 million in 1987 to about 2.2 million in 1999), whereas in Western Europe we see practically parallel lines of births and deaths (for instance, in Germany a number of births in 1980 was about 0.9 million and in 1999 - about 0.8 million with a number of deaths in 1980 - about 0.95 million and in 1999 - about 0.85 million; in Italy - a number of births in 1980 was about 0.6 million and in 1999 - about 0.55 million with a number of deaths in 1980 - about 0.55 and about 0.6 million death in 1999). As Murray Feshbach's study shows, if in European countries (like Germany or Italy) the net ratio is close to 1.1 deaths to every birth, in Russia, deaths exceeded births by 929,600 in 1999, a ratio of 1.8:1. Feshbach's verdict: Russia is facing a ?demographic Chernobyl that would give a fearful meaning to the word meltdown?. (Murray Feshbach, ?Russia's Population Meltdown?, 15 The Wilson Quarterly, 1 (Spring 2001), p. 18, 21). Another ?selective truth? is ?slund's triumphant statement that infant mortality in Russia ?plunged by 17 percent from 1993 to 1998? (in the same ?Think again, Russia!?), as if the Russian ?reformers? should be praised for that, and his inexplicable silence about the fact that infant mortality more than doubled in Russia between 1990 and 1993: from 14 per 1,000 live births to 30, and that the 17 percent reduction of infant mortality is simply miserable comparing to that terrible growth. (A study by Carl Haub, Chair of Population Information at the Washington-based Population Reference Bureau, frequently quoted at the World Bank Transition Newsletter. The Newsletter About Reforming Economies, available at www.worldbank.org/html/prddr/trans/apr95/pgs18-19.htm). And that's exactly for what we should ?thank? the ?reformers? and their Western consultants! (To what extent we can trust official statistics in Russia today is also a question. The same M. Feshbach, for instance, mentioned a possibility that the correct infant mortality figure in 1997 was closer to 40 per 1,000 live births than the official figure reported as below 20). And why does ?slund speak only about infant mortality and not about mortality of other age groups, for instance, children? The authors of a new study Young People in Changing Societies (undertaken by the Innocenti Research Centre (Florence, Italy) on behalf of UNICEF) estimate that about half a million children aged 5-14 who lived in Eastern Europe and USSR in 1989 have already died, almost half in Russia alone. The mortality rate among young people rose in 11 (out of 27) post-Communist countries, particularly within the CIS; it fell in 16 other countries, including the Baltic states and Eastern Europe. The danger of a young person dying was three times greater in Russia than in Slovakia, the Czech republic or in Hungary. The report concludes that these deaths are explained by mainly social causes and could have been avoided under different social conditions. ?slund, however, denies that ?average healthcare standards in Russian have fallen?. And this is another falsehood, just like his allegation that ?capitalism has made medicines widely available... and the equipment at hospitals has greatly improved?. A special chapter (Chapter 4; p. 39-52) of the UNEP report Transition 1999. Human Development Report for Central and Eastern Europe and the CIS is dedicated exclusively to health crisis in Russia and other post-Communist countries. See a thoughtful rebuttal to several other ?slund's allegations (including his old thesis of a ?splendid achievement? of ?market reform and privatization? in Russia, an ?extraordinary improvement in [Russia's] infrastructure?, and ?considerable structural improvements?) by Edward Lukas, Moscow correspondent of The Economist, on Johnson's Russia List, #5338, 6 July 2001; available at www.cdi.org/russia/johnson/5338.html. Also see Peter Reddaway's rebuttal to ?slund's allegation about ?the falling crime rate? in Russia as a ?result of energetic government efforts? in: The Weekly Standard, 2 February 1998. In his comments ??slund The Myth Maker?, Jim Millar (of The George Washington University) wrote: ?Economic advisors to governments have the same responsibility as medical doctors do to their patients. Above all, they should not make the patient worse. Second, when the patient does get worse they have an obligation to seek second opinions and to reconsider their diagnosis and prescriptions. Anders ?slund, on the contrary, now seeks to show that the patient was never sick in the first place, nor did the patient become worse after receiving treatment. Both Russia and Ukraine have been Anders' patients, and both remain very sick if not terminally so?. (Johnson's Russia List, #5167, 24 March 2001; available at www.cdi.org/russia/johnson/5167.html). And in his recent article, John Helmer even compared a new appointment of ?slund, having a reputation of a ?frequent promoter of Chubais' views? (see The Moscow Tribune, 19 April 1997), to a World Bank team investigating the success of privatization in Russia to ?having David Irving teach the history of the Holocaust? (see John Helmer, ?Hiring Professor Huckster and Inspector Hype?, The Russia Journal, 4-10 May 2001; also available at www.russiajournal.ru/printer/weekly4587.html). 121 See this comparison at the World Bank Transition Newsletter. The Newsletter About Reforming Economies (April 1997), available at www.worldbank.org/html/prddr/trans/apr97/pgs24-28.htm. 122 ITAR-TASS, 16 March 2001. 123 This index is 1.5 times smaller than in developed countries. In the U.S. it's currently 85-88 percent. In the Russian Empire, at the time of the 1896/97 census, for 50 guberniya of European Russia the survival rate of 16 year olds up to the age 60 was 56 percent. Contrary to what could be expected, especially by Western observers, major improvements occurred in the Soviet period (excluding major demographic catastrophe periods such as Civil War, collectivization, and World War II) with the growth of the considered index to some 72 percent in 1965. It dropped to 68 percent in 1982, while now 46 percent of Russian men will not live to retirement age. (See Murray Feshbach, ?Comments on Current and Future Demographic and Health Issues?, Johnson's Russia List, #5338, 10 June 1997). 124 There are between 625,000 (an official figure) and 2 million abandoned homeless children in Russia today (see ITAR-TASS, 29 June 1999). Newspaper stories about kids living in cardboard boxes among garbage cans or about a 6-year-old Vanya Mishukov who was raised by stray dogs (The Guardian, 16 July 1998) no longer look like a gross dramatization of life in Russia and most other former Soviet republics. (Also see Sergei Rykov, ?In Free Russia Children Are Raped, Robbed and Murdered?, Komsomolskaya Pravda - RIA Novosti, 17 April 1997). 125 UNDP Press Release ?Men Hardest Hit by Hurried Transition to Free Markets in Ex-Soviet Countries? available at www.undp.org/rbec/pubs/hdr99/pr.htm. Russian Nation has not overcome the catastrophic consequences of ?reforms? yet. The demographic situation in Russia had been assessed as ?critical? by experts of the World Health Organization (WHO). In assessment of Dr. Mark Donzon, the WHO European Bureau Director, and Mikko Vienonen, Special Representative of the WHO Director, Russia's population is expected to fall by another 2.8 million over the next three years (from 144.4 million in 2001) and further shrink to 130 million by the year 2015. (ITAR-TASS, 2 February 2001). Was it holy naivety, ignorance or deliberate disinformation of the U.S. Senate when on September 3, 1993, Strobe Talbott, at that time Ambassador-at-Large for the NIS, claimed (in his testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee) that ?national rebirth has begun? in Russia? 126 In the words of Mark Jones, a British writer, ?the only two things that are certain are that there will be more unrecorded, unlamented Russian deaths and that the triumphal pageant of western-inspired ?reforms? will pass the heaps of corpses by, noses aloft? (Johnson's Russia List, 27 May 1997). 127 Thomas E. Graham, Jr., ?Putin's Russia. Why Economic Reform Requires Political Support. Reflections on U.S. Policy Toward Russia?, 9 East European Constitutional Review 1-2 (Winter-Spring 2000); Martin Malia, ?The Haunting Presence of Marxism-Leninism?, 10 Journal of Democracy 2 (April 1999), p. 41. Thomas Graham corrected himself, however, when making the following comment: ?The [Clinton] administration backed an economic course - the so-called ?Washington Consensus? - that did not take sufficient account of Russian political realities, including a widespread elite and popular opposition to that course. Critics were generally dismissed as communists, hard-liners, or economic illiterates. In the end, the administration found itself backing a small, unpopular group of radical reformers. Not only was the economic program not implemented, but the way it was pursued cast into doubt American support for the democratization of Russia?. (Thomas Graham, ?US Ignores Russia's Elite At Its Own Peril?, Christian Science Monitor, 26 Oct. 2000; also available at www.ceip.org/files/publications/grahamusigners.asp). There is a quite adequate legal definition for what was described by Thomas Graham (in his witness testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee Hearing on Corruption in Russia and Future U.S. Policy, 30 September 1999) as an initiative of ?a relatively small circle of senior [U.S.] administration officials? to enter into ?a partnership with a similarly small circle of senior Russian government officials for the purpose of transforming Russian society? (Federal News Service, 2 October 1999). The definition is 'conspiracy'. 128 As it was later cynically explained by an American scholar, if the ?international community? gives its support to a ?traditionally undemocratic act?, as it did in Russia in September 1993, then this act is actually ?democratic?, albeit ?unconstitutionally democratic?. (Donna R. Miller, ?Unconstitutional Democracy: Ends vs. Means in Boris Yeltsin's Russia?, 4 Transnational Law & Contemporary Problems 2 (Fall 1994), p. 876). 129 It was openly admitted by Peter Reddaway (of The George Washington University) in his witness testimony before the Senate Hearing on Corruption in Russia (30 September 1999), that the United States ?have this record of involving ourselves not just in economic policymaking in Russia, but also in personnel. It was actually an unwritten condition of the IMF loan in 1995 of $6.8 billion that Mr. Chubais would be the person in charge of running economic policy. It was not written into any agreement, but it was an unspoken agreement, unrecorded agreement... That is the sort of meddling, the sort of attempt to direct Russian policy at the macro level. And supporting Mr. Yeltsin prior to his decision to destroy the Russian Parliament in 1993, we gave our permission to do that. We allowed democracy to be subverted in that way. Those are the sorts of meddling and involvement that I think have been very much against our national interest? (Federal News Service, 2 October 1999; emphasis added. - AD). 130 Mary McAuley, ?The Big Chill. Civil Society in Russia in a New Political Season?, Ford Foundation Report (Winter 2001); available on Johnson's Russia List, #5156, 17 March 2001 at www.cdi.org/russia/johnson/5156.html. Russian NGOs cannot be accused in being too prude and selective in respect of their sponsors, and that concerns not only foreign, but domestic grant-providers too. Not many other things could make a bigger damage to the image of the Sakharov Center or the Moscow-based International Foundation for Civil Liberties in the eyes of common Russian people then the fact that those civic groups are provided with a generous financial support (to be precise, 3 million U.S. dollars in the first case, and one million in the other) from robber baron B.A. Berezovsky. (See RFE/RL Newsline, 29 August 2001). 131 For example, NGOs working in collaboration with the Russian Foundations for Legal Reform have 8 sources of funding of their activities with ?foreign foundations? constituting the largest source among all of them - 22.7%. In reality, foreign support might be even bigger because 12.6% of budget coming from ?sponsor dues? does not necessarily mean that such sponsors are always 'domestic'. (F.E. Sheregi and E.A. Abrosimova, Pravovye initsiativy nekommercheskikh organizatsiy Rossii [Legal Initiatives of Noncommercial Organizations of Russia] (Moscow: Russian Foundations for Legal Reform, Center for Social Prognosis, 1999), p. 93). 132 Timothy J. Colton, Michael McFaul, op.cit., p. 22. 133 ?USAID officials simply misunderstood the relationship between formal institutions and civil society: successful legal and political institutions are preceded by the development of a culture of respect for the law and democratic structures. Yet USAID supported creating jury trials, party systems, the transplantation of civil and commercial codes, and the drafting of constitutions in countries completely lacking in a social base to support these elements of civil society. Contractors, forced to respond to the political pressures felt by USAID, were in no position to provide proposals that explored the tougher route of building a civic culture. From USAID's perspective, building a courtroom in less than two months time was more useful than a lengthy program designed to foster community values supportive of democratic institutions?. (Peter J. Stavrakis, ?Bull in a China Shop: USAID's Post-Soviet Mission?, 4 Demokratizatsiya. The Journal of Post-Soviet Democratization 2 (Spring 1996), p. 261. Also available at The American Foreign Policy Council's website at www.afpc.org/issues/bull.htm). 134 ?AID programs have failed miserably in helping NIS states develop the limited, competent administrative institutions that are essential for the breakthrough to civil society... Russia and other successor states have inadvertently done the United States a great favor by exposing the fundamental incapacity of USAID to achieve assistance goals that promote American interests abroad. The lesson to be drawn from USAID's encounter with the NIS is that reform is insufficient; if America aspires to provide assistance that promotes the development of free-market, civil societies, there is no alternative to eliminating AID and replacing it with a leaner, more efficient and competent structure? (Peter Stavrakis, op.cit., p. 249, 248. Also see Janine R. Wedel, ?Clique-Run Organizations and U.S. Economic Aid: An Institutional Analysis?, 4 Demokratizatsiya 4 (Fall 1996); Janine R. Wedel, Collision and Collusion: The Strange Case of Western Aid to Eastern Europe (New York: St. Martin's Press, 2001. 2nd ed.)); Stephen Cohen, Failed Crusade: America and the Tragedy of Post-Communist Russia (New York: Norton, 2000). 135 Timothy J. Colton, Michael McFaul, op.cit., p. 22. McFaul repeated his appeal to the Bush administration to ?cut all democratic and economic aid to the state and redirect these funds to Russian society? in: ?Moscow, Misreading Bush?, The Washington Post, 23 January 2001. 136 Michael McFaul & Nikolai Zlobin, ?Judge Putin by His Democratic Acts, Not His Talk?, Los Angeles Times, 24 June 2001. 137 In the past, one of the authors of the CEIS report, was a consultant of the National Democratic Institute (NDI) in Moscow. In its multimillion USAID-funded activities (in 1992-1997, the NDI and the International Republican Institute (IRI), received $17.4 million from the USAID, to ?help reformist political parties strengthen their organizational structures and their role in elections? (Foreign Assistance. Harvard Institute for International Development's Work in Russia and Ukraine (Washington, U.S. General Accounting Office: November 1996), p. 37)) NDI, among other things, trained a group of approximately 3,000 ?reformist-minded political activists? in Russia (1992-1996) which ironically included Vladimir Putin, who is now described by the same McFaul (in his testimony to the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee), as a potential ?Russia's Milosevic? [in this case, A. ?slund publicly disagrees with his Carnegie Endowment for International Peace colleague and calls a suggestion that Putin ?would be Russia's Milosevic? ?a flimsy assertion?. See his ?Think Again, Russia!?], someone ?willing to use the power of the state and ignore the democratic rights of society in the pursuit of his objectives?, whose election as a new Russian President was not a ?positive step? for the U.S. interests in Russia (Johnson's Russia List, #4247, 14 April 2000; available at www.cdi.org/russia/johnson/4247.html). McFaul contradicts himself in his last statement, just like in his (and Colton's) new ?formula for democracy? 'Represent the will of the people within the state, and the institutions will follow'. Doesn't Putin's landslide victory in the 2000 presidential election ?represent the will of the people?? Describing the results of a recent opinion poll, a VTsIOM sociologist was certainly right when saying that President Putin so overshadows all other political and social figures in Russia now that there are almost no individuals who serve as leaders of an independent civil society. This is a remarkable shift, the sociologist said, from conditions of 1999 when numerous leaders enjoyed significant rates of trust and thus could serve as catalysts for the promotion of civil society institutions (Izvestiya, 9 October 2001). 138 Sergei Karaganov [Deputy Director of the Institute of Europe of the Russian Academy of Science], ?Ruled by a 'Kleptocracy'?, The Times, 28 September 1999. 139 The verb kinut' (to con, rip off, swindle) is common in the slang of Russian criminals and was used by Anatoly Chubais, ?father of privatization? and chief negotiator of the 1998 $4.8 billion bailout package from IMF, in his interview to Kommersant Daily (8 September 1998) when he argued that lying to Western lenders in the days preceding the financial meltdown in Russia was the right thing to do: ?In such situations, the authorities have to do it. We ought to. The financial institutions understand, despite the fact that we conned them out of $20 billion, that we had no other way out?. An American journalist naively admitted that he found Chubais' statement ?especially startling because [Chubais] has been widely viewed as one of Russia's 'young reformers,' who could be trusted by the West because he favored establishing a market economy?. (See Richard C. Paddock, ?Russia Lied to Get Loans, Says Aide to Yeltsin?, Los Angeles Times, 9 September 1998. Also available at www.afpc.org/issues/infcon.htm) Chubais' revelations produced a discussion on JRL regarding the most adequate translation and ?economic? interpretation of the word kinut' (does it actually mean to 'con' or 'stiff somebody'), and are an excellent illustration of the criminal essence (?splendid achievements?, in ?slund's words) of the results of monetarist reforms in Russia. (See Johnson's Russia List, #2365, 11 September 1998). The term was later used by Jerry Hough when he wrote about the Russian reformers who ?just conned the IMF, and the IMF then conned Western investors? (see Johnson's Russia List, #2399, 29 September 1998). 140 ?Secretary of State Powell's Message on 10th Anniversary of Belarus' Independence? (of 25 August 2001) available at www.usis.minsk.by/html/powell_10th.html). American reporters are overall much less sophisticated than the State Department officials and tend to transform such unclear accusations as [Belarus] ?has tried - in vain - to stir up hostility toward Euro-Atlantic institutions? and such phrases as ?retrogression in economic policy and performance? to more primitive (thus, more understandable to American public) expressions. Respectively, Alexander Lukashenko has been labeled ?stupid?, ?paranoid?, someone ?with Neanderthal views? (Chicago Tribune, [Editorial], 29 March 1997), ?proto-fascist dictator? (James H. Billington, ?Russia, Between a Dream and a Nightmare?, The New York Times , June 17, 1998), ?Europe's last dictator? (White House press secretary Ari Fleisher, quoted in: RFE/RL Newsline, 18 September 2001), ?the Stalinist leader of Belarus?, and even ?an open admirer of Hitler? (?Russia and Its Tyrant Neighbor? [Editorial], The New York Times, 25 August 1997). That's about a leader of the Nation where every fourth citizen was slaughtered by Nazis... Ironically, one of American Lukashenko-bashers is Pat Buchanan denounced by his liberal compatriots as a ?defender of Nazis?, ?Holocaust revisionist?, ?anti-Semite... flirting with fascism? and ?praising Hitler?. (See, for instance, www.realchange.org/buchanan.htm). Provided such accusations are true, everything should be all right with Lukashenko, if he is trashed by someone like Buchanan. 141 According to official results of the elections, Alexander Lukashenko obtained 75.65 percent of the vote. His rivals Vladimir Hancharyk and Sergei Haydukevich got 15.65 and 2.48 percent. Turnout in the elections was 83.86 percent. (RFE/RL Newsline, 17 September 2001). 142 A group of international observers (citizens of Britain, U.S., Poland and Croatia) sent to monitor the presidential elections in Belarus by the British Helsinki Human Rights Group (BHHRG) testified that ?the organization of the elections was of a high level?, ?the secrecy of the ballot was observed?, ?there was a high level of participation?, ?none expressed any fear or pressure, contrary to what was claimed in the Western media?. Noting that it is ?always critical of early voting, which unfortunately exists in many countries including Germany and the U.K.?, BHHRG concluded that it ?saw no reason to challenge the result? of the elections. Whatever flaws can be found in the Belarus presidential election, they are hardly as large as the ones that afflicted the US presidential election of 2000. In the end, President Lukashenko was elected by the people, and not picked by Belarussian Supreme Court or Constitutional Court. In another report ?Belarus 2001: The Pre-electoral Situation?, BHHRG concluded: ?The claims that Belarus is a Stalinist dictatorship or ?worse than Cuba? - to quote Ambassador Kozak - are contrary to the evidence on the ground. This is proven by the fact that foreigners known for their active opposition to the president - like the executive director of the International Helsinki Federation (IHF), Aaron Rhodes, who has called him ?Hitler loving? - are able to visit and remain in the country unhindered for long periods of time and hold press conferences there?. (Both BHHRG reports are available at www.bhhrg.org/belarus). 143 See ?Yeltsin Moves to End Chaos - Hon. Steny H. Hoyer (Extension of Remarks)?, Congressional Record, 22 September 1993. P. E2219. 144 The activities of the Constitutional Court of Russia were suspended after it voted 9 to 4 (in an emergency session immediately after issuance of Yeltsin's Decree 1400 dissolving the Russian parliament) that the President's action violated Article 121-6 of Constitution, according to which the President couldn't use his powers ?to dismiss, or suspend the activities of, any lawfully elected agencies of state power?. Otherwise, the President's powers ?are discontinued immediately?. Originally, it was an article of the Law ?On the President of the RSFSR? (April 1991) that later (May 1991) was included into the Constitution and instituted presidency in Russia. 145 In 1998, a major Moscow newspaper alleged that U.S. money helped finance Yeltsin's electoral campaign. The newspaper charged that in March 1996, half a billion dollars (in $100 bank notes) was sent as a diplomatic shipment to the U.S. embassy in Moscow. The embassy officials confirmed that information arguing, however, that the shipment was planned to ensure that there were enough new $100 bank notes to meet demand in Russia. The explanation didn't hold water, because if the embassy arguments were true, the money could have been stored at the Russian Central Bank rather than at the embassy. In the newspaper's interpretation, half a billion dollars was quickly ?acquired by large Russian banks?, which ?played an active role in the Yeltsin campaign?. As known, Russian legislation prohibits candidates from accepting contributions from foreign donors. (Moskovskii komsomolets, 11 February 1998; RFE/RL Newsline, 11 February 1998). The newspaper's version got an additional confirmation next year, when Sergei Lisovsky, an advertising and show business mogul (detained on 19 June 1996, when trying to smuggle a Xerox paper box with $538,000 ?black cash? in it from the Russian government building), admitted that in the 1996 campaign ?the main money was Western? (see Novaya gazeta, June 28-July 4, 1999; also quoted in: Jamestown Foundation Monitor, 28 June 1999)). By the way, back in June 1996, Chubais, the reform icon, bluntly denied that the box or its contents even existed: ?I am deeply convinced that the so-called box with money is a traditional element of a traditional, Soviet-style KGB provocation?. 146 See The Guardian, 25 August 2001; also available at www.guardian.co.uk/Archive/Article/0,4273,4245377,00.html. 147 Alice Lagnado, ?U.S. Adopts 'Contras Policy' in Communist Belarus?, The Times, 3 September 2001; also available at www.thetimes.co.uk/article/0,,3-2001303768,00.html. 148 Mark Almond [of Oxford University], ?For Nicaragua, Read Belarus?, The Guardian, 14 August 2001; also available at www.guardian.co.uk/Archive/Article/0,4273,4242518,00.html. 149 Also see 2 RFE/RL Poland, Belarus, and Ukraine Report 44 (28 November 2000). 150 Ian Traynor, ?Belarussian Foils Dictator-Buster... For Now. Tested US Foreign Election Strategy Fails Against Lukashenko?, The Guardian, 14 September 2001; also available at www.guardian.co.uk/Archive/Article/0,4273,4256816,00.html. 151 Alice Lagnado, ?Why the Rural Millions Love a Dictator?, New Statesman, 17 September 2001. 152 Alice Lagnado, ?U.S. Adopts 'Contras Policy' in Communist Belarus?, The Times, 3 September 2001. 153 Jeremy Bransten, ?Belarus: President Decrees More Restrictions on NGOs?, RFE/RL, 21 March 2001. 154 Ian Traynor, op.cit. According to Russian press, support to Belarussian opposition through Eurasia Foundation only has grown from $340,000 in 1996 to $1.5 million in 1998 and about $4 million in 2001. 155 Scott Peterson, ?US Spends Millions to Bolster Belarus Opposition?, Christian Science Monitor, 10 September 2001; available at www.csmonitor.com/2001/0910/p7s1-woeu.htm. The newspaper quoted Paulyuk Bykowski, a political writer for the weekly Belarussian Market newspaper, saying that ?Lukashenko is right that [outside money] flows into politics?. Of the 19 or so registered opposition parties, ?almost every one has 10 to 20 non-governmental organizations [eligible for outside cash]?. ?Name me any other country where you get paid for being in the opposition?, a Belarussian journalist wondered, and a newspaper editor ridiculed American seminars for their attempts to teach ?how we should live?. (Scott Peterson, ?US Spends Millions to Bolster Belarus Opposition?, Christian Science Monitor, 10 September 2001; Alice Lagnado, ?Why the Rural Millions Love a Dictator?, New Statesman, 17 September 2001). 156 English translation of the decree is available at www.belarusupdate.org/civilsoc/luka_decree.html. 157 Jan Maksymiuk, ?Lukashenka Wants Wide-margin Victory?, RFE/RL Newsline, 7 September 2001. 158 ?A.P. Denounces Belarus Authorities?, AP Online, 3 August 2001. 159 See, for instance: Jeremy Bransten, ?Belarus: President Decrees More Restrictions on NGOs?, RFE/RL, 21 March 2001. 160 See Ronald C. Monticone, ?A Brief Comparative Analysis of the Russian Constitution?, Constitution of the Russia Federation. With Commentaries and Interpretation by American and Russian Scholars (Lawrenceville, VA: Brunswick Publ. Corp., 1994), p. 14, 7, 9. 161 See, for instance: Presidential Powers and Human Rights under the Draft Constitution of Belarus (New York: Lawyers Committee for Human Rights, October 1996). 162 Indeed, if, for instance, according to the Russian Constitution, the decision on the President's removal from office must be adopted by a vote of two-thirds of the total membership of each chamber of the Federal Assembly, and the whole impeachment process is to be accomplished within three months after filing the charge against him (Art. 93), the Constitution of Belarus has the same provision regarding voting in the lower chamber (House of Representatives), but raises the threshold for the Senate to three-quarters of its total composition, and limits the time frame to one month (Art.88). Yet, the Russian Constitution provides for five stages in the impeachment process (including participation of both the Supreme and Constitutional Courts of Russia), which makes the process more time-consuming, whereas the impeachment process in Belarus is to be accomplished in four stages without involvement of the Constitutional Court. In practical terms, however, the Constitutions of both countries make their Presidents technically unimpeachable. 163 Jim Hoagland, ?Worse Than Yeltsin?, The Washington Post, 12 September 1999. 164 Michael Specter, ?My Boris?, The New York Times Magazine, July 26, 1998; also available at www.cdi.org/russia/johnson/2288.html. Hoagland-Specter's description of Yeltsin is a modern paraphrase of Theodore Roosevelt's famous ?our son of a bitch?. 165 A British reporter author has to recognize that President Lukashenko is ?popular? and correctly notes that ?people are living in far worse conditions in some parts of Russia and Ukraine? than in Belarus and that average pensions in Belarus are about $30 a month, whereas in many Russian regions they are three times smaller. (Alice Lagnado, ?Why the Rural Millions Love a Dictator?, New Statesman, 17 September 2001). She is also right that ?most Belorussians? fear that a new, pro-Western leader would bring the poverty experienced by many Russians and Ukrainians after the transition to a market economy?, but still labels Lukashenko as a ?dictatorial Communist? (Alice Lagnado, ?U.S. Adopts 'Contras Policy' in Communist Belarus?, The Times, 3 September 2001). Why should Belorussian people denounce Lukashenko, if in the last five years Belarus' GDP has grown by 36 percent, and the industrial output by 65 percent (RFE/RL Newsline, 5 September 2001)? 166 More on problems and fallacies of American 'aid' to Russia see the author's recent article ?Amerikanskaya ?pomoshch? Rossii. Vremya kardinal'nogo izmenenia prioritetov? [American 'Aid' to Russia: Time for a Drastic Change of Priorities] published (with certain editorial changes) by a State Duma legal periodical, the oldest Russian emigre magazine (in New York), and a major Moscow newspaper (see: Predstavitel'naya vlast' - XXI vek, No. 2-3, 2001; Novy Zhurnal, No. 223, 2001; and Nezavisimaya gazeta-Dipkurier, 22 March 2001 (the newspaper changed the original title to ?Grustnaya istoria amerikanskoy pomoshchi Moskve? [Sad Story of American Support to Moscow. The U.S. Administration Provided Aid Not to Russia Herself, But to 'Agents of Changes']). Its shorter English version ?Something Wicked Comes This Way'. Sad Story of American 'Aid' to Russian 'Reformers'? appeared on Johnson's Russia List, #5180, 1 April 2001 and is available at www.cdi.org/russia/johnson/5180.html. The article is partly based on the author's report at an international conference at the Yale Law School in 1999. (See: Alexander Domrin, ?Counter-Effects and Deficiencies of U.S. 'Aid' to Russia: Constitutional and Parliamentary Aspects?, What Role for the West? Promoting Legal Reform in the Former Soviet Union (New Haven, CT: Russia and Eastern Europe Law Forum, Yale Law School, April 23-24, 1999)). 167 It's sad but true: ?Americans have always seen Russian politics through the eyes of the radical Moscow intellectuals? (Jerry F. Hough, Evelyn Davidheiser, Susan Goodrich Lehmann, The 1996 Russian Presidential Election (Washington: The Brookings Institution Press, 1996), p. 14). 168 See Michael McFaul, ?Pull Russia into the West?, Christian Science Monitor, 26 July 2001. 169 McFaul began threatening Russia after a stunning defeat of ?reformers? in the 1993 parliamentary elections and electoral success of LDPR which, in his opinion, represented ?one of the greatest threats to U.S. national security in the post-cold war era?. ?Failure to... rethink Western policy regarding Russia, - McFaul warned, - will be the greatest mistake of U.S. and Western foreign policy, since appeasing another fascist insurgent sixty years ago?. And concluded: ?Perhaps most important, Zhirinovsky's electoral victory has made fascist ideas respectable in Russian politics?. (Michael McFaul, Understanding Russia's 1993 Parliamentary Elections: Implications for U.S. Foreign Policy (Stanford University, Hoover Institution on War, Revolution and Peace, 1994), p. 1-2). Jason Bitter (of the University of Toronto) answered to McFaul when he threatened Primakov's government with ?negative consequences of circumventing the democratic process?: ?Quite frankly I find it rather insulting to the U.S. to say anything about itself supporting Russian democracy. It has supported Yeltsin, not democracy. I am particularly interested in McFaul's ?negative consequences?. I am also interested in why the U.S. would choose to push democracy in Russia... while it maintains support for governments that are not democratic in other parts of the world. They have no moral foot to stand on?. (Jason Bitter, ?McFaul on PBS?, Johnson's Russia List, 21 September 1998; available at www.cdi.org/russia/johnson/2389.html). 170 Sarah E. Mendelson, Western Assistance and the Development of Parties and Elections in Russia (Democracy and Rule of Law Project, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Fall 1999), p. 5; available at www.ceip.org/programs/democr/NGOs/index.html. 171 Michael McFaul, ?West or East For Russia??, The Washington Post, 9 June 2001. 172 Charles H. Fairbanks, Jr., ?The Feudalization of the State?, 10 Journal of Democracy 2 (April 1999), p. 39. Paradoxically, the same scholar who correctly stated that the failure of American ?reform strategy? ?has probably destroyed Russians' trust in the West for generations to come? seems to believe that American strategists of ?reforms? ?do have a second chance? and points at China (with its possible future transition from Communism to capitalism) as a new object for Western ?advice? (ibid.). Hopefully, the horrifying lesson of Russia will have a sobering effect on Chinese people, and they won't give such chance to their latter-day saviors. From Michael.Keaney at mbs.fi Fri Nov 2 05:00:03 2001 From: Michael.Keaney at mbs.fi (Keaney Michael) Date: Sat Jul 8 08:08:23 2006 Subject: [A-List] Britain/US split? Message-ID: The return of the B-52s Richard Norton-Taylor Friday November 2, 2001 The Guardian This time, they said, it would be different. It would be effective, it was unprecedented, not like any other war. "The days of carpet-bombing are over," they told us. It would be a sophisticated, covert campaign, they insisted, and we breathed sighs of relief when it seemed cool heads in Washington had won the day after the September 11 atrocities. The massive display of four aircraft carriers and 400 strike aircraft, cruise missile submarines and surface ships, were there for show, a psychological demonstration of firepower, was the message. They deceived us. It was not long before we were told that military action was, after all, "inevitable". American public opinion demanded it. Never mind the military impossibility of defeating such an elusive "enemy" in the "war on terrorism", and the inevitability of "collateral damage" - civilian casualties. It was not long before American generals spoke of "errant munitions", meaning "smart" bombs going astray. They brought in heavily armed gunships, first used in the Vietnam war, to attack "engagement zones", a term they preferred to "kill boxes". An officer on board the US aircraft carrier, Carl Vinson, described the use of cluster bombs - dropped by American B-52 bombers based on the "British" Indian ocean territory of Diego Garcia. "A 2,000lb bomb," he said, "no matter where you drop it, is a significant emotional event for anyone within a square mile". Now, increasingly desperate military planners are resorting to B-52 bombers, based on Diego Garcia, carpet-bombing - a tactic straight out of Vietnam. A day after Geoff Hoon, the defence secretary, painted an upbeat picture of the achievements of the air strikes, saying they had destroyed "all nine" of Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida training camps, the Pentagon admitted that the Taliban was proving more resilient than they had expected. Admiral Sir Michael Boyce, chief of the defence staff, sent out a very different message from that of his political master. "It is not likely, in my personal view, that the Taliban will give up," he said. He described the enemy, the al-Qaida network, as "more of an idea than something you can touch". It certainly will not give up as a result of carpet-bombing, or even well-publicised "covert" raids by special forces (based in "friendly" Gulf states which we are not supposed to name). "I can only suggest that it is like trying to eradicate cancer with a blowtorch," Sir Michael Howard, the historian, told a Guardian/Royal United Services Institute conference this week. Who will ever forget Bloody Sunday in Northern Ireland, he said, when a few bursts of small arms fire by the British army gave the IRA a propaganda victory from which the British government was never to recover? Ministers and their advisers talk about getting to the "root cause" of Islamist extremism, of "a battle for hearts and minds" - a term, Howard reminded us, first coined by the British during the Malayan "emergency" against communists in the 1950s and 60s, a campaign which lasted 15 years. By root causes, the British government appears to mean poverty and hunger rather than action to establish a Palestinian state or tackle Arab grievances about Iraq and US troops in the Middle East. It is a supremely patronising and arrogant response. It is also misleading. Al-Qaida draws many of its most militant supporters, including suicide bombers, from families of the elite, not the deprived. With daily pictures on our screens of air strikes and civilian casualties, Hoon this week tried to play down the significance of military force at a press conference called primarily - according to the Ministry of Defence - for the benefit of the Arab and Muslim press. The campaign against terrorism, he said, was first of all a "law enforcement" campaign. Second, said Hoon, it was a "humanitarian" campaign - Afghanistan must be prevented from being a "breeding ground for terrorism". Give them food, they will soon give up their animosity towards the west in general and the US in particular, seems to be the message. Only last, Hoon went on with no trace of irony, was this a military campaign. "Some parts of the world," he said, "are beyond the reach of Scotland Yard." By all means bring in the cops, the spooks, the special forces - and the courts. B-52s, the crude weapon of the frustrated bully, should be banished to the scrapyard. This campaign, as ministers and their defence advisers are finally admitting, has shown up the poverty not only of military thinking but of the very utility of weapons of war. In the end, the Taliban regime will fall and we will be told, as we were when Slobodan Milosevic ordered his forces out of Kosovo, that bombing succeeded. Don't believe it. Full article at: http://www.guardian.co.uk/waronterror/story/0,1361,585368,00.html NOTE: Richard Norton-Taylor is the Guardian's intelligence correspondent. He has collaborated before with author/journalist David Leigh (now also at the Guardian) on the investigation of the Matrix-Churchill arms to Iraq scandal that hit the Major government in 1994. His position is very much more detached than that of Ian Bruce, although his image was tarnished by his involvement in the recent fiasco involving the Guardian paying out vast sums of money in order to serialise the absolutely trivial memoirs of ex-MI5 boss Stella Rimington. This article I would treat as evidence of growing disquiet within establishment circles regarding the recklessness and counterproductiveness of the US military campaign. Also, it serves as a kite to be flown in order to gauge reaction, much as might be done in a focus group, for example. This way the state can assess the state of UK public opinion without appearing to be doing so. This can be done independently of Norton-Taylor's relationship with the intelligence services. Like Paul Foot, Seumas Milne, David Leigh, et al., his sincerity can still serve useful ends. Michael Keaney Mercuria Business School Martinlaaksontie 36 01620 Vantaa Finland michael.keaney@mbs.fi From sherrynstan at igc.org Fri Nov 2 05:02:02 2001 From: sherrynstan at igc.org (sherrynstan@igc.org) Date: Sat Jul 8 08:08:23 2006 Subject: [A-List] Prashad on the war Message-ID: September 2001 War Against the Planet By Vijay Prashad President George W. Bush of the United States appeared on television sets across the world on the 11th of September and declared war against the planet. Not only will those who committed the dreadful crimes of the morning be brought to justice, he declared, but so too will those who once harbored and now continue to harbor them. Supply ships have started their way to Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean, and toward Spain. A large part of the $40 billion designated by the US Congress will go toward the preparations that have already begun within the US military establishment, in close contact with its allies. The Taliban, in Afghanistan, quickly pleaded that the suffering of its poor should not be increased with the wrath of the cruise missiles. So did Libya's Gaddafi. Others, such as Pakistan, hastily declared their fealty to the US strike back, and pledged to allow planes to fly over its territory. India was not far behind, eager to allow its land for what may be the largest assault since the bombardment of Cambodia and Iraq. One commentator on the US television networks lamented that the US lost its virginity at 845am on 9/11 when the first plane struck the World Trade Center. But the war did not begin at that time. This was not Pearl Harbor. The war has been ongoing for quite some time now, at least for five decades. Indeed, five decades ago the United States assumed charge of that band of nations that stretches from Libya to Afghanistan, most of whom are oil rich and therefore immensely important for global capitalism. The civilizational mandate held by France and Britain came to a close when World War II devastated Europe, and it fell to the US to adopt the white man's burden. It did so with glee, indeed on behalf, for the most part, of the Seven Sisters, the largest oil conglomerates in the world (most of them US-based transnational corporations). Alliances forged with right-wing forces in these regions found fellowship from the US, just as the Left fashioned relations with the USSR. The United States participated in the decimation of the Left in north Africa and west Asia, from the destruction of the Egyptian Communist Party, the largest in the region, to the rise of people like Saddam Hussein to take out the vibrant Iraqi Communist Party, and of the Saudi financier Osama bin Laden to take down the Communist Afghan regime. We hear that 9/11 was the "worst terrorist attack in history," but this ignores the vast history of bombardment, in general, tracked by Sven Lindquist in his new book (for the New Press), and it certainly ignores the many terrorist massacres conducted in the name of the United States, for instance, such as at Hallabja in Iraq or else in South America by Operation Condor. These are just a few examples. But what is that history before 845am on 9/11, and will it show us that "retaliation" misses out the fact that the US has been at war for many decades already? I. The Afghan Concession. In 1930, a US State Department "expert" on Afghanistan offered an assessment which forms the backbone of US social attitudes and state policy towards the region: "Afghanistan is doubtless the most fanatic hostile country in the world today." Given this, the US saw Afghanistan simply as a tool in foreign policy terms and as a mine in economic terms. When the Taliban (lit. "religious students") entered Kabul on 27 September 1996, the US state welcomed the development with the hope that the new rulers might bring stability to the region despite the fact that they are notoriously illiberal in social terms. The US media offered a muted and cliched sense of horror at the social decay of the Taliban, but without any sense of the US hand in the manufacture of such theocratic fascists for its own hegemonic ends. In thirty years, Afghanistan has been reduced to a "concession" in which corporations and states vie for control over commodities and markets without concern for the dignity and destiny of the people of the region. Oil, guns, landmines and heroin are the coordinates for policy-makers, not the shadowy bodies that hang from the scaffolds like paper-flags of a nation without sovereignty. Shortly after the Taliban took power in Kabul, the US State Department offered the following assessment: "Taliban leaders have announced that Afghans can return to Kabul without fear, and that Afghanistan is the common home of all Afghans," announced spokesperson Glyn Davies. The US felt that the Taliban's assertion in Kabul would allow "an opportunity for a process of reconciliation to begin." Reconciliation was a distant dream as the troops led by the Tajik warlord, Ahmed Shah Masood and the troops led by General Abdul Rashid Dostum and the Hazara-dominated Hezb-e-Wahdat party disturbed the vales of Afghanistan with warfare. Citizens of the advanced industrial states mouthed cliches about "timeless ethnic warfare" and "tribal blood-feuds" without any appreciation of the history of Afghanistan that produced these political conflicts (in much the same way as the media speaks of the Tutsi-Hutu turmoil without a sense of colonial Belgium's role in the production of these politico-ethnic conflicts). In 1964, King Zahir Shah responded to popular pressure from his subjects with a constitution and initiated a process known as "New Democracy." Three main forces grew after this phase: (1) the communists (who split into two factions in 1967, Khalq [the masses] and Parcham [the flag]); (2) the Islamic populists, among whom Burhanuddin Rabbani's Jamiat-i-Islami from 1973 was the main organization (whose youth leader was the engineering student, Gulbuddin Hikmatyar); (3) constitutional reformers (such as Muhammad Daoud, cousin of Zahir Shah, whose coup of July 1973 abolished the monarchy). Daoud's consequent repression against the theocratic elements pushed them into exile from where they began, along with the Pakistani Jamaat-I-Islami and the Saudi Rabitat al-Alam al-Islami, to plot against the secular regime in Afghanistan. In 1975, for instance, the theocratic elements, led by Hikmatyar in Paktia, attempted an uprising with Pakistani assistance, but the "Panjsher Valley incident" was promptly squashed. The first split amongst the theocratic elements occurred in the aftermath of this incident. Instability in Afghanistan led to the communist coup in 1978 and the eventual Soviet military presence in the region from 1979. The valiant attempts to create a democratic state failed as a result of the inability of hegemonic states to allow the nation to come into its own. >From 1979, Afghanistan became home to violence and heroin production. Money from the most unlikely sources poured into the band of mujahidin forces located in Pakistan: the US, the Saudis (notably their general intelligence service, al-Istakhbara al-'Ama), the Kuwaitis, the Iraqis, the Libyans and the Iranians paid the theocratic elements over $1 billion per year during the 1980s. The US-Saudi dominance in funding enabled them to choose amongst the various exiled forces -- they, along with the Pakistanis, chose seven parties in 1981 that leaned more towards theocratic fascism than toward secular nationalism. One of the main financiers was the Saudi businessman, Osama bin Laden. Five years later, these seven parties joined the Union of Mujahidin of Afghanistan. Its monopoly over access to the US-Saudi link emboldened it to assassinate Professor Sayd Bahauddin Majrooh in Peshawar in 1988 when he reported that 70% of the Afghan refugees wanted a return to the monarchism of Zahir Shah (who waited in a Roman suburb playing chess). Further, the Interim Islamic Government of Afghanistan called a shura (council) in 1989; the seven parties nominated all the representatives to the body. All liberal and left wing elements came under systematic attack from the shura and its armed representatives. The US-Saudi axis anointed the theocratic fascists as the heirs to Afghanistan. With over $1 billion per year, the mujahidin and its Army of Sacrifice (Lashkar-i Isar) led by Hikmatyar (who was considered the main "factor of stability" until 1988) built up ferocious arsenals. In 1986, they received shoulder-fired Stinger missiles that they began to fire indiscriminately into civilian areas of Afghanistan. Asia Watch, in 1991, reported that Hikmatyar paid his commanders for each rocket fired into Kabul. Claymore mines and other US-made anti-personnel directional fragmentation mines became a staple of the countryside. Today, about 10 million mines still litter the vales of Afghanistan (placed there by the Soviets and by the US-Saudi backed mujahidin). In 1993, the US State Department noted that landmines "may be the most toxic and widespread pollution facing mankind." Nevertheless, the US continues to sell mines at $3/mine (mines cost about $300-$1000/mine to detect and dismantle). Motorola manufactures many of the plastic components inside the mines, which makes the device undetectable by metal-detectors. The CIA learnt to extend its resources during the Southeast Asian campaigns in the 1970s by sale of heroin from the Golden Triangle. In Afghanistan, the Inter-Service Intelligence (ISI) [Pakistan's CIA], the Pakistani military and civilian authorities (notably Governor Fazle Huq) and the mujahidin became active cultivators, processors and sellers of heroin (a commodity which made its Southern Asian appearance in large numbers only after 1975, and whose devastation can be gleaned in Mohsin Hamid's wonderful novel, Moth Smoke). The opium harvest at the Pakistan-Afghan border doubled between 1982 and 1983 (575 tons), but by the end of the decade it would grow to 800 tons. On 18 June 1986, the New York Times reported that the mujahidin "have been involved in narcotics activities as a matter of policy to finance their operations." The opium warlords worked under cover of the US-Saudi-Pakistani axis that funded their arms sales and aided the conveyance of the drugs into the European and North American markets where they account for 50% of heroin sales. Heroin is not the only commodity flogged by the mujahidin. They are the front-line troops of an ensemble that wants "commercial freedom" in Afghanistan so that the Afghan people and land can be utilized for "peaceful" exploitation. The California-based oil company Unocal (76), then busy killing the Karens and other ethnic groups in alliance with the Burmese junta and with the French oil company Total, had its eyes on a pipeline from Central Asia to the Indian Ocean, through Afghanistan. Only with an end to hostilities, at any cost, will the international corporations be able to benefit from the minerals and cheap labor of the Afghans. So far, the corporations have reaped a profit from sales of arms to the Afghans; now they want to use the arms of the Afghans for sweatshops and mines. For corporations and for corporatized states (such as the US), an unprincipled peace allows them to extract their needs without the bother of political dissent. The Taliban briefly offered the possibility of such a peace. Formed in 1994 under the tutelage of the ISI and General Naseerullah Khan (Pakistan's Interior Minister), the Taliban comprises southern Pashtun tribes who are united by a vision of a society under Wahhabism which extols a form of Islam (Tariqa Muhammadiya) based on its interpretation of the Quran without the benefit of the centuries of elaboration of the complexities of the Islamic tradition. In late September 1996, Radio Kabul broadcast a statement from Mullah Agha Gulabi: "God says that those committing adultery should be stoned to death. Anybody who drinks and says that that is not against the Koran, you have to kill him and hang his body for three days until people say this is the body of the drinker who did not obey the Koran and Allah's order." The Taliban announced that women must be veiled and that education would cease to be available for women. Najmussahar Bangash, editor of Tole Pashtun, pointed out shortly thereafter that there are 40, 000 war widows in Kabul alone and their children will have a hard time with their subsistence. Further, she wrote, "if girls are not allowed to study, this will affect a whole generation." For the US-Saudi-Unocal-Pakistan axis, geo-politics and economics make the Taliban a worthy regime for Afghanistan. Drugs, weapons and social brutalities will continue, but Washington extended a warm hand towards Mullah Mohammed Omar and the Taliban. US foreign policy is driven by the dual modalities of containment (of rebellion inspired by egalitarianism) and concession (of goods which will bring profit to corporate entities). Constrained by these parameters, the US government was able to state, in 1996, "there's on the face of it nothing objectionable at this stage." Certainly, on 10 October 1996, the State Department revised its analysis of the Taliban on the basis of sustained pressure from Human Rights and women's groups in the advanced industrial states as well as pressure from the conferences held by Iran (at which numerous regional nations, such as India participated). In conflict with its earlier statement, the US declared "we do not see the Taliban as the savior of Afghanistan. We never really welcomed them." The main reason offered for this was the Taliban's "uniquely discriminatory manner" with women. The US state department would have done well to mention the heroic attempt made by the communist regime to tackle the "woman question." In late 1978, the regime of Nur Mohammad Taraki, President of the Revolutionary Council of Afghanistan, promulgated Decree no. 7 which aimed at a transformation of the marriage institution by attacking its monetary basis and which promoted equality between men and women. Women took leadership positions in the regime and fought social conservatives and theological fascists on various issues. Anahita Ratebzad was a major Marxist leader who sat on the Revolutionary Council; other notable leaders included Sultana Umayd, Suraya, Ruhafza Kamyar, Firouza, Dilara Mark, Professor R. S. Siddiqui, Fawjiyah Shahsawari, Dr. Aziza, Shirin Afzal and Alamat Tolqun. Ratebzad wrote the famous Kabul Times editorial (28 May 1978) which declared that "Privileges which women, by right, must have are equal education, job security, health services, and free time to rear a healthy generation for building the future of the country....Educating and enlightening women is now the subject of close government attention." The hope of 1978 is now lost and the pessimism must not be laid at the feet of the Taliban alone, but also of those who funded and supported the Taliban-like theocratic fascists, states such as the US, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan. The real reason for the US frustration with the Taliban was its recalcitrance toward global capitalism (as an example, the Unocal scheme fell apart). The Taliban, created by many social forces, but funded by the Saudis (such as bin Laden) and the CIA, was now in the saddle in the center of Asia, and it soon became a haven for disgruntled and alienated young men who wanted to take out their wrath on the US rather than fight against the contradictions of global capital. Bin Laden, the CIA asset, became the fulcrum of many of their inchoate fears and angers. II. Oil, Guns and Saddam. During the Gulf War of 1991, a decade ago, the US-Europe discovered the Kurds for a few years. The Kurds and the Kuwaitis provided the war aims for the Alliance, since we kept hearing how Saddam Hussein's armies had exploited both. Oil is not the reason, we were repeatedly told; we are only concerned for the ordinary people of the region oppressed by these madmen, such as Saddam Hussein, Hafez al-Assad and the Ayatollahs. We heard little about the recently closed Iran-Iraq war, about the various contradictions in the region, indeed about the role of the US-Europe for several decades in the fabrication of the regimes that ruled here. As the cruise missiles fell on Iraq, we did not then hear that the first major aerial bombardment in modern times took place in December 1923 when the Royal Air Force pummeled the rebellious Kurds (they felt the wrath of the guns again in March 1924, not being disciplined firmly enough by Headmaster Britain). In 1932 the British put in place the puppet royal dynasty, the al-Saud family to rule the Arabian Peninsula as Saudi Arabia. This regime was to protect the "interests" of global capitalism, particularly after oil was discovered there in the early 1930s. The British put King Faisal over the newly created Iraq, a Sunni leader over a predominantly Shi'ite land. Workers movements in the region came under attack from these regimes, many of which violently crushed democratic dissent in the name of the dollar. Henry Kissinger was later to create political theory of a policy that had been long in the works: that the US should lock arms with any political leader who will resist the will of socialism, who will ensure that international capitalism's dictates be maintained and who can therefore be a "factor of stability." The rogue gallery of this policy includes a host of CIA assets, such as the Noreiga, Marcos, Pinochet, Suharto, the Shah of Iran, the various Gulf Sheikhs, and latterly such fundamentalist friends as the BJP in India. Even when some of these leaders flirted with the Soviets (Saddam and al-Assad), their usefulness to US policy prevented a break in their links to the CIA, mainly to contain domestic left-wing dissent. The Ayatollah may have been a natural asset, but his regime was stamped by a radical and patriarchially egalitarian Shi'ism that terrified the Oil Kingdoms, whose tenuous rule was now bolstered even further by the armies of the imperial powers and their proxy state at this time, Iraq. When the Iran-Iraq war broke out, people spoke of it as a sectarian war between Shias and Sunnis, but few pointed out that Iraq has a large Shia population and that Iraq fought primarily with the backing of the US and its alliance to "contain" the Iranian revolution and the rule of the Mullahs. Saddam, then, was friend not foe. During these years, no one mentioned the Kurds. For decades the communist movement grew amongst the Kurds, both in Turkey and in northern Iraq. But by the early 1970s, the CIA entered the battlefield to cut down the left and bolster the right. Between 1972 and 1975 the CIA paid $16 million to the eccentric and untrustworthy Mullah Mustafa Barzani as a "moral guarantee" of US support for this activities. In 1959, Barzani had expelled the communists from his mainly Iraqi party and he had sent Iranian Kurds to their death in the camps of the Shah. Barzani was an asset that the US cultivated, and is now a close ally of Saddam Hussein, another US asset. In 1975, Marxist-Leninists within the Kurdish resistance formed the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), which pushed many Kurds to the Left, including those in the Iraqi Kurdish Front formed in 1988. Saddam Hussein was given the green light by Washington to take out the PUK, and he conducted chemical bombing on them in 1983 (at Arbil) and most spectacularly in 1988 (at Halabja, where five thousand died, and many thousand continue to suffer). The outrage of Halabja created a momentary stir in the Left media, but nothing was done then because Saddam was a US ally and asset - it returned to do ideological work during the Gulf War. As many died at Halabja as on 9/11, but their death does not factor in when NPR announces that 9/11 was the "worst terrorist attack in history." When terror is conducted in our name, then it is not terror but "retaliation." III. Revenge or Justice? President Bush promises to get those who did the bombings in New York and Washington, but he also promises that those who harbor them will feel the wrath of the US. This is the most dangerous statement so far. Not only does it violate all manner of international laws, it ignores the fact that the US has harbored these criminals for years, mainly at the expense of the global Left. Saddam and bin Laden are products of the US, even as they, like Frankenstein's beast, turn against their master now. The lesson is not to continue the madness, to go after the symptom with $40 billion of firepower. The lesson, for all democratic minded people, is to undermine the basis of our global insecurity. First those people who did the horrendous deed on 9/11 must be found, arrested and brought to trial. The path of justice should not be short-circuited by the emotions of the moment. Second, our fight in the US continues, as we continue to point out that US foreign policy engenders these acts of barbarism by its own desire to set-up strong-arm "factors of stability" in those zones of raw materials and markets that must be subservient to US corporate interests. Vast areas of anger, zones of resentment will continue to emerge - this is not the way forward. Another indiscriminate bombardment will bring forth more body bags for the innocent. History shows us that the US was not innocent on 9/11, even as thousands of innocent people died. We should not confuse these two things: the terrorists made no distinction between those who conduct political and economic terror over their lives, between a regime that they dislike, corporate interests that they revile and innocent people who live in the same spaces. The terror of the frustrated works alongside the terror of the behemoth to undermine the powerful and democratic urges of the people. Both of those terrors must be condemned. -- Vijay Prashad is an Associate Professor and Director of the International Studies Program, Trinity College, Hartford, CT. Copyright (c) 2001 Vijay Prashad. All Rights Reserved. From Michael.Keaney at mbs.fi Fri Nov 2 05:28:13 2001 From: Michael.Keaney at mbs.fi (Keaney Michael) Date: Sat Jul 8 08:08:23 2006 Subject: [A-List] George Galloway's speech Message-ID: Yesterday there was a debate followed by a vote on the bombing. A small number of Labour MPs "rebelled" against the government, together with Welsh and Scottish nationalists. George Galloway is a longstanding opponent of the campaign against Iraq, and has made a number of courageous efforts to highlight the situation of ordinary Iraqis, including a very high profile transportation of an Iraqi girl to a Glasgow hospital for treatment of her leukaemia, a gift courtesy of the humanitarian bombers who employ depleted uranium ordnance to underline the values of "civilisation", humanity, freedom, and everything else suddenly attacked on Sept 11. ===== Mr. George Galloway (Glasgow, Kelvin): Like my hon. Friend the Member for Hackney, South and Shoreditch (Mr. Sedgemore), I hope that the Government will listen to what I have to say. I know something about the Islamic world and have spent the best part of 10 years warning in this Chamber about the rising tide, the rising radicalism and the Islamicisation of the Muslim world and the terrible clash that would result. My warnings were not much listened to before; I hope that after 11 September they are being listened to more. Let me respond to a number of difficult and troublesome comments made during the debate. The hon. Member for Aldershot (Mr. Howarth) should not ask British Muslims to choose between Her Majesty and their religion, for they will not do it. They will put nothing in front of their religion. They will not put Her Majesty in front of their religion any more than I would put Her Majesty in front of mine. It is an unrealistic and unfair demand. I say to my right hon. Friend the Member for Walsall, South (Mr. George), who has left the Chamber, that no one in this country should be told to keep their heads down during a period of national debate and soul-searching such as this. I appreciate that he may not have meant it in quite the way it sounded, but it sounded very bad. 1 Nov 2001 : Column 1071 I deplore the comments of the right hon. Member for Swansea, East (Donald Anderson) about foreign students at Britain's universities. I am married to a biologist--a scientist--who took her PhD at Glasgow university. She is a Palestinian with an Arab name, so I am acutely sensitive to this point. Foreign students in this country, whatever subjects they study in British universities, should not be made to feel uneasy or put under a searchlight, as the comments of the right hon. Member for Swansea, East seemed to imply. The hon. Member for North Warwickshire (Mr. O'Brien), a former Minister indeed, seemed to think that any Parliament anywhere should be required to give unequivocal and unconditional support to the Government. That might be the kind of Parliament that Osama bin Laden would have in mind; it is not this kind of Parliament. The only thing more depressing than the demand of the former Minister that Parliament should show unequivocal, unconditional support for the Government was the rapid surrender to it by the spokesman for what he himself described as the Loyal Opposition. I shall vote against the Government this evening, albeit on a procedural motion, because I believe that a substantive motion should be on the table to allow hon. Members to table reasoned amendments and the House to express deliberate judgment on the aims and conduct of the war. Mr. Malcolm Savidge (Aberdeen, North): Will the hon. Gentleman give way? Mr. Galloway: I do not have time. I believe that some of my hon. Friends and some Opposition Members will join us in the Lobby and that a substantial number of hon. Members will abstain. We and the abstainers will only grow in number in the days to come. There is a fantastic dislocation between the atmosphere in the Chamber and the atmosphere outside in the country, and still more in the wider world. One would not think, listening to the Secretary of State for Defence, that more than half the population of this country want the bombing to stop now so that humanitarian aid can flood in. One would not know, listening to some of my colleagues who often lecture us about feminism, that more than half the women in Britain are demanding an end to the war. One would not know, listening to the Liberal Democrat spokespeople, that more than half the Liberal voters in the country are demanding an end to the war. One would not know, listening to some Labour Members, that millions--if the opinion polls are right, some 12 million to 14 million people--in this country were demanding an end to the war, or that millions of them were Labour voters. One certainly would not know from some hon. Members who represent constituencies with substantial Muslim populations that there was great unease and opposition to the war in our country. One would not know that the campaign was going disastrously around the world. One would not know that it is scarcely possible for an American politician to set foot in the Arab countries. Our Prime Minister has to go as what The Wall Street Journal unkindly described as "the American ambassador" to those countries. 1 Nov 2001 : Column 1072 When our Prime Minister goes to Arab countries, he receives short shrift from the leaders whom he meets. As my hon. Friend the Member for Linlithgow (Mr. Dalyell) said, countries such as Iran are unequivocally against the bombing. Syria lectured the Prime Minister yesterday against bombing. If anyone here thinks that public opinion in the Arab world is with them, they are living in cloud cuckoo land. I have the benefit of watching Arab television, listening to the phone-in programmes and reading the Arab press. If Members of Parliament think that they have the support of the Islamic world--1.3 billion people strong--they are living in cloud cuckoo land. Our new friend General Musharraf promised his people at the outset that the campaign would be short, sharp and targeted. The fact that it is neither short nor sharp is the reason why it is now a dagger pointed at his heart. Everyone in Pakistan knows it. More than 90 per cent. of the people of Pakistan are demanding that their Government desist from co-operating in the savage bombardment of Afghanistan. That is a fact. The Secretary of State for International Development may think that General Musharraf is secure in his post. I do not know anyone else who thinks that the self-appointed president of Pakistan is in any way secure. Sharp? B52s, sticks of bombs, carpet bombing--is that sharp? We saw just how accurate the targeted, laser-guided weapons were. Now we have moved to carpet bombing from B52s. We are told that the bombing is of military positions, as if the military lines in Afghanistan were somehow wholly separate from the villages and towns in which people lived, not to mention from the displaced people in Afghanistan. Sharp? Cluster bombs? I never thought I would hear Labour spokespeople defending cluster bombs. Is the military struggle with the Taliban so finely poised that we cannot eschew the use of cluster bombs? I watched the Secretary of State for International Development on the beach at Brighton--done up in her mine-clearing suit--weeping about the victims of land mines. She knows that in so far as cluster bombs are not land mines they are worse than land mines, because land mines at least are mapped--land mines dropped from aeroplanes are by definition unmappable. I only have time to deal with a couple of additional points. The aims of a campaign such as this cannot be separated from its likely outcome. Members who wish it to be restricted to Afghanistan are fooling themselves: this war is going to be extended to other countries. If they do not want that to happen, they must join us now. If they do not want the Northern Alliance, they must join us. The Northern Alliance are the people who destroyed and beggared Afghanistan in the first place, whose mediaeval obscurantism put the women in chains, destroyed the towns and cities, took the women out of the universities, hanged the former President Najibullah from a lamp-post--they put his penis in his mouth and left him hanging to rot. That is the Northern Alliance--your new best friends who you hope to put into power. My last point is this: we want this war stopped during Ramadan--not out of respect for the Muslims, but because it would give the Government a chance, without losing face, to send a message to the Islamic world that they are going to pause during the holy month of Ramadan; that they are going to consider how the project 1 Nov 2001 : Column 1073 has gone so far; that they are going to consult more widely; that they are going to try diplomacy; that they are going to try legal means and political means during that pause in the war; and that, above all, they are going to flood the country with humanitarian assistance--food and kindness--which will do far more to win the masses of Afghanistan to their cause than bombing them from B52s and bombing them with cluster bombs will ever do. ===== NOTE: The "Honourable" Member for Aldershot, Gerald Howarth, is a disgusting racist long associated with the anti-immigration wing of the Conservative Party and a former prot?g? of George Kennedy Young, ex Deputy Chief of MI6, Kleinwort Benson merchant banker, private army conspirator against Harold Wilson (the Unison Committee for Action) and organiser of pressure group Tory Action. Young's bid to take over the now-banned Monday Club in the early 1970s was backed by Howarth and the latter's mother, both of whom were office bearers in that organisation. Howarth is also one of the few Conservatives who have stood by, through thick and thin, the disgraced former minister Neil Hamilton. Together they, with "Sir" James Goldsmith's money and "Lord" William Rees-Mogg's connivance, successfully sued the BBC in 1985 for having broadcast a Panorama documentary, "Maggie's Militant Tendency", which detailed both their careers as anti-immigration racist boot boys. The contrived capitulation of the BBC (courtesy of Rees-Mogg) paved the way for the ejection of Director General Alasdair Milne and his replacement by Michael Checkland, whose deputy, John Birt, was running the BBC long before officially succeeding Checkland. We know now just how tectonic a shift in that institution Birt was able to engineer. The irony is, of course, that the older establishment employed the modernisers to accomplish ends which ultimately saw that establishment itself modernised out of power and now merely a dwindling sect of punk Thatcherites in the New Labour era. And Birt, of course, is now Blair's special adviser on policy strategy. Michael Keaney Mercuria Business School Martinlaaksontie 36 01620 Vantaa Finland michael.keaney@mbs.fi From Michael.Keaney at mbs.fi Fri Nov 2 05:57:03 2001 From: Michael.Keaney at mbs.fi (Keaney Michael) Date: Sat Jul 8 08:08:23 2006 Subject: [A-List] marriages of convenience Message-ID: Mark Jones wrote: Can there be a Russia/US/China triumvirate? Don't think so, and I plan to post more on this. ===== Moscow asks Nato for help in restructuring Financial Times, Oct 26, 2001 By JUDY DEMPSEY Russia has discreetly asked Nato for assistance in restructuring its defence ministry and armed forces after recent talks in Brussels between President Vladimir Putin and Lord Robertson, Nato secretary-general. The request was welcomed by Nato officials, who believe the attacks on the US could provide an opportunity for the alliance to forge a much closer relationship with Russia. Since the attacks on New York and Washington, Russia has backed Washington's fight against terrorism, including the US-led strikes against Afghanistan. It has also supported efforts to oust the Taliban regime and replace it with a broad-based coalition of Afghan political groupings from inside and outside the country. But in asking Nato for assistance, Mr Putin has taken a gamble that carries big risks, while Nato itself will have to start defining Russia's future role with the organisation. Mr Putin has to deal with a military establishment that is still deeply suspicious of Nato - particularly if it moves ahead with further enlargement that could include the Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. President George W. Bush has said enlargement will take place irrespective of a country's location. In any case, a threat from Nato has been repeatedly used by the Russian military to justify preservation of the old military infrastructure. On the other hand, say defence analysts, Mr Putin has to start introducing reforms in an army that has proved incapable of ending the war in Chechnya and one that also requires investments to modernise itself. Furthermore, without reforms, the threats that Russia faces - money laundering, drug trafficking, ethnic tensions and lax border controls - will prove impossible to handle without fundamental reforms. "In many ways Nato and Russia share the same interests - and these are about security," said a Nato official. "Nato, as Putin knows, has moved away from just being a collective defence organisation to one that is increasingly focusing on security issues. Look at the Balkans, where we are active." Mr Putin, diplomats say, is likely to rely heavily on Sergei Ivanov, his defence minister, for preparing the ground for Nato advice. The argument both he and Nato will use is that the first wave of enlargement, encompassing Poland, the Czech Republic and Hungary, in no way threatens Russia's security or national interests. The defence establishments in these countries have been slow to do away with the old communist structures. Nevertheless, Nato has since increased its expertise to make the defence ministries more transparent and accountable to civilian control. Nato is also involved in helping potential new members overhaul their ministries and armed forces. The mechanics of Nato assistance have still to be worked out - as indeed has the new forum for meetings and consultations Mr Putin and Lord Robertson agreed earlier this month. "Much now depends on how Putin can sell it to the generals back home," said a senior European diplomat. Full article at: http://globalarchive.ft.com/globalarchive/articles.html?print=true&id=01 1026001172 From Michael.Keaney at mbs.fi Fri Nov 2 06:08:03 2001 From: Michael.Keaney at mbs.fi (Keaney Michael) Date: Sat Jul 8 08:08:23 2006 Subject: [A-List] Britain/US split? Message-ID: Peter Mandelson: My verdict on Syria's young leader: a decent man doing a difficult job 'It was the most relaxed and honest exchange I am ever likely to have with a foreign head of state' The Independent, 01 November 2001 I am a friend and supporter of Israel, and nothing that has happened recently has diminished that commitment. My stance did not stop me, however, travelling to Syria, supposed foe of Israel, at the turn of this year. In fact, politics had nothing to do with my plans, except in the sense that I wanted a short break before the resumption of intensive negotiations in Northern Ireland last January (subsequently derailed by my departure from office). I still play my tape of the car music that accompanied my five-day journey across the country, which my driver presented to me on my departure. Politics barely intruded in all the conversations I had with new Syrian acquaintances, except for one unexpected diversion from my plans in Damascus. The young Syrian President, Bashar al Assad, invited me to call at his home and, standing down my guide for 30 minutes, I changed into collar and tie and sped off to greet him. Three and a half hours later I returned to my mystified guide after what I can only describe as the most relaxed and honest exchange I am ever likely to have with a foreign head of state. Why did it take so long ? Because Bashar is an intelligent and cultured individual who, having lived and studied in London, wanted to show off his perfect English (unfortunately I did not meet his English wife); but also because, like so many leaders of his type and generation, he is looking for a fresh paradigm for his country that will rescue it from economic backwardness without plunging it into political chaos. Hu Jintao, visiting London this week from China, could tell an identical story. Syria's case history is instructive. Dogged throughout most of the last century by violent coups, military dictatorships and one-party rule, it found stability of sorts under Bashar's father, Hafez al Assad. Assad senior was famous for his personality cult and ruthlessness and his militant opposition to the State of Israel. On his death last year, power unexpectedly passed to Bashar, not yet groomed and arguably unready for the burdens of office placed upon him. Without pausing for breath, Bashar had to work out from scratch what he stood for, what he wanted and how he was going to achieve it. Surrounded by the power plays of his father's elderly court that have lived on past his father's reign, he has had to establish himself from a standing start as a true embodiment of the Assad dynasty and also a challenger of everything it stands for. In a very different political climate from our own, it makes New Labour's task look straightforward. And it was our political experience that kept us talking for our three and a half hours. It does not matter whether I liked Bashar (although I did) or whether he was being totally open with me. What matters is that he is trying to run a country that is alive with competing pressures and tensions, all of which have been made a hundred times worse by the actions of al-Qa'ida and Osama bin Laden. Bashar no more needs his people polarised into rival Islamic camps - divided over support for the infidel Americans or the crazy bin Laden - than he needs a hole in the head. There are Muslim fundamentalists agitating in his country, like every other Arab nation. He has to tread carefully. His task is to create enlightenment and spread reform without providing a pretext for rabble-rousers and religious reactionaries to stir the masses and pitch them against his rule. The last time this was attempted in Syria, his father responded by razing much of the town of Hama to the ground by means of a 10-day artillery bombardment of unparalleled brutality. Nobody imagines that such a course is open to Bashar, or that he would seek it. But this makes it all the more necessary for him to feel his way and to maintain the careful balance of his administration; and to recognise that, among his (Muslim) people, the clearcut virtues of the war against (Islamic) terrorism do not look so simple, or right, from the other end of the telescope, where the politics are about nationalism as well as religion, and about culture as well as human rights. That does not make it right for Syria to give shelter to Hamas or Hizbollah or any other Arab terrorist group, any more than it is desirable for the provisional IRA to maintain arms dumps in the Republic of Ireland or for the Real IRA to base itself in that country. In Ireland's case, however, the Government is attempting to move against or curtail both of these organisations, while in Syria there is no evidence of similar action - although the country's internal politics might make this very difficult. Most of my discussion with Bashar was about his country's development and the experiences that Britain has had. But we touched on the Middle East and the Arab-Israeli conflict. I offered some lessons from my time in Northern Ireland, stressing the need for a process of some sort to exist, whatever the strains. I argued that confidence-building, on both sides, is vital, whatever the pressures. The two sides had to meet halfway for negotiations to have a chance of success. He did not disagree with any of this. He merely pointed out that some in Israel seemed determined to go in the opposite direction, and that while he was prepared to settle for land in exchange for peace, Israeli settlers had a very different conception of what that meant. I did not pursue the subject except to point out that the behaviour of Israeli settlers did not constitute an expansionist policy of the state as a whole. I would say that Bashar was less than convinced by this observation and I wonder, in that light, what his views would be now, 10 months and many mutual provocations and savage killings later. In two weeks' time I will find myself in Israel to speak at the annual Balfour declaration anniversary dinner. I suspect I will encounter the same sort of apprehension and concern about the turn of events that the Prime Minister has discovered on his visit to Damascus. Nobody benefits from terrorism. It is a cancer whose tentacles spread to every country and society, whatever its origins. That is why the Bashars of this world know that it has to be countered. Our job is to make it easier for them to help without compromising the objectives of the task. The author was the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, 1999-2001 Full article at: http://argument.independent.co.uk/commentators/story.jsp?story=102505 Michael Keaney Mercuria Business School Martinlaaksontie 36 01620 Vantaa Finland michael.keaney@mbs.fi From mark.jones at tiscali.co.uk Fri Nov 2 09:19:03 2001 From: mark.jones at tiscali.co.uk (Mark Jones) Date: Sat Jul 8 08:08:23 2006 Subject: [A-List] Britain/US split? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.2.20011102161741.0239cf60@pop.tiscali.co.uk> Probably I am missing something here, but what does this tell us about the US/Britain split? Mark At 02/11/2001 13:05, you wrote: >Peter Mandelson: My verdict on Syria's young leader: a > decent man doing a difficult job > > 'It was the most relaxed and honest exchange I am ever > likely to have with a foreign head of state' > > The Independent, 01 November 2001 From mark.jones at tiscali.co.uk Fri Nov 2 09:27:03 2001 From: mark.jones at tiscali.co.uk (Mark Jones) Date: Sat Jul 8 08:08:23 2006 Subject: [A-List] Economist: Changing Russia Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.2.20011102162322.02491d08@pop.tiscali.co.uk> [some people are saying Putin faces real problems in his Defence Ministry after the Cuban base closure; how true is this? Does anyone know, even The Economist? Mark] Hope gleams anew At home and abroad, things have never looked brighter for Russia's president, Vladimir Putin. Will it last? IT IS hard, looking back over the past decade or so, to imagine a better few weeks for Russia?at home or abroad. Since September 11th, Vladimir Putin has done a lot to make the West like him. He has embraced the American-led anti-terrorist coalition, calling the air-strikes on Afghanistan ?measured and appropriate?. He has started closing a clutch of controversial foreign military bases. Even talks about talks with Chechen rebels have begun. At home, the economy is still growing and reforms continue; the corpse of the Kursk submarine has been raised; and a notorious tycoon-cum-politician from the Yeltsin era, the railways minister, Nikolai Aksyonenko, is facing corruption charges. When he emerged into public view two years ago, Mr Putin looked like a colourless compromise, in hock to the Yeltsin-era magnates and the hard men of the armed forces and the security services. He liked consensus and caution, not bold moves. The rhetoric was sometimes friendly and liberal but was rarely turned into action. Not now. Particularly on foreign policy, he shows a striking sureness of touch, for example over the closure of two of Russia's remaining big Soviet trophies overseas, an electronic listening station in Cuba and a naval station in Vietnam. Hardliners moaned, but Mr Putin was adamant: they cost too much and were irrelevant to Russia's real needs. Russia has also softened on America's missile defence; a deal now looks in sight when Mr Putin meets President Bush this month. Relations with NATO have never been warmer. Mr Putin is also reshaping Russia's stance in the former Soviet Union. Old-fashioned twitchiness about spheres of influence has lessened. American soldiers are now in Uzbekistan, with Kremlin blessing. Russia is pulling out some soldiers and weapons from a base in Abkhazia (a separatist bit of Georgia) and promises to do the same from Transdniestria (a Russian-speaking enclave of Moldova). Russia's presence in both places, in defiance of international obligations, has stoked fears of neo-imperialist schemes in the old empire. Now the tone is very different. Mr Putin has been remarkably polite to Georgia, telling it to sort out the Abkhaz problem without Russia, if it wants to cope with a messy result alone. As Transdniestria's elections in December draw near, its peppery separatist leader, Igor Smirnov, looks vulnerable; the Kremlin is much chummier now with his Moldovan opponents. A top Russian general is even talking indirectly to Chechnya's president, Aslan Maskhadov, officially still a wanted criminal. Economic reform is speeding up too. This week Mr Putin promised more tax reform and a new financial intelligence service to fight money-laundering; reiterated his country's eagerness to join the World Trade Organisation (WTO), the body that regulates global commerce; and said his country wanted ?normal, candid and reliable? relations with the outside world. An economic adviser, Andrei Illarionov, once a notorious gloomster, is also sounding very cheerful. Even falling oil prices will not stunt Russia's economic growth, he says, though this is likely to be 4% next year, down from last year's record 8% figure. Russia is even thinking of paying back some of its foreign debt early. Though high oil prices and the effect of the huge devaluation in 1998 gave the economy a terrific fillip, restructured old firms and new businesses are helping too. Change is least visible in politics. Regional elections are still tarnished by money and skulduggery. The bureaucracy is almost untouched. The squeeze on the independent press continues: Anna Politovskaya, the most intrepid Russian reporter dealing with Chechnya, has fled to Vienna after receiving threats. But the competent and well-publicised salvaging of the Kursk did strike a good note, in sharp contrast to the lies and confusion that surrounded the tragedy of its sinking as it unfolded in August last year. But how deep does all this go? Kind words from Washington and London have given a gloss to Russia's image. But some hard truths remain. One is that although some interests overlap, others do not. Russia has little difficulty in supporting airstrikes against a common enemy, the Taliban. But any American move against, say, Iraq may be another story. Another problem is that many of the people who matter in Russia still think very differently from Mr Putin. Even some of the president's own team sing a different song. Many senior soldiers still want to halt a final retreat from empire. This week Georgia, whose president, Edward Shevardnadze, is in political trouble, said Russian planes had again bombed its territory. Like Mikhail Gorbachev ten years ago, Mr Putin may find it hard to make a pro-western stance pay off at home. A lot of powerful people still resist economic reform too. Over the past ten years many people have done well out of Russia's entrenched protectionism, bureaucracy and cartels. They would hate to see them dismantled in favour of the international competition, openness, normality and reliability praised by Mr Putin. And for all the current back-slapping, Russia must still grow even faster if it is to catch up with the West reasonably soon. Foreign investment is still puny, despite an oil deal worth $12 billion announced this week. Huge tracts of the economy, such as the banks, utilities and the public sector, are largely unreformed. A third question is sincerity. Mr Putin's motives are inscrutable. He may have calculated that now is the time to woo the West with grand gestures and spontaneous concessions, in the hope of a grateful payback later. Those hopes might include easier terms for joining the WTO or a new grand alliance with NATO, possibly at the expense of some of Russia's neighbours. These are not immediate worries, though. Mr Putin's huge popularity means that his new foreign policy faces no direct threat. Most Russians are delighted to see their country more popular and respected, and glad to avoid a direct entanglement in Afghanistan. Even slow and patchy economic reforms are better than none. Still, real change in Russia, and real trust from the West, will take years, not weeks. From jlgulick at sfo.com Fri Nov 2 15:20:04 2001 From: jlgulick at sfo.com (John Gulick) Date: Sat Jul 8 08:08:23 2006 Subject: [A-List] marriages of convenience In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.1.20011102140904.00a4eec0@pop3.norton.antivirus> Michael Keaney posted the following _FT_ article, "Moscow asks Nato for help in restructuring," in which an "anonymous" NATO official was quoted as saying: "In many ways Nato and Russia share the same interests - and these are about security ... Nato, as Putin knows, has moved away from just being a collective defence organisation to one that is increasingly focusing on security issues." This raises anew the question I posed last week: are we witnessing the two steps forward-one step back creation of new international military/intelligence instruments by means of which the world's ruling classes will police the morbid symptoms of neo-liberalism, peripheral capitalism, "failing states," and so on ? (Which of course begs the question of the degree to which any and all ruling classes accumulate capital -- directly and indirectly -- by means ilicit according to standards of bourgeois legality). If so, is this best conceptualized as a collection of bilateral and multilateral "marriages of convenience," or have we crossed some qualitatively new thresshold en route to the formation of a global ruling class ? I suppose I should dredge up Mark's Lenin vs. Kautsky post, which I shall do in due time. John Gulick From mark.jones at tiscali.co.uk Sat Nov 3 02:16:03 2001 From: mark.jones at tiscali.co.uk (Mark Jones) Date: Sat Jul 8 08:08:23 2006 Subject: [A-List] al-Ahram on Russia and a New World Order Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.2.20011103090739.00a930d8@pop.tiscali.co.uk> A new world order? The Russians and the Americans are edging closer together, but old rivalries die hard, writes Mona Abdel-Malik in Moscow (photo: photos: AP) The 11 September attacks in the US have had global ripple effects, among them the rather unexpected rapprochement between Russia and the United States. While Russian President Vladimir Putin declared that Russia would support the US in its struggle against terrorism, he also qualified this statement by explaining that Moscow was only willing to cooperate with Washington on its own terms. Russian officials have expressed muted irritation over a pervasive US-centric view of world politics. The 1999 terrorist bombing of a Moscow apartment building that killed hundreds of people was granted little space in the international media. Yet, when Americans died on 11 September, the whole world has been mobilised and, indeed, required to participate in retaliatory actions. In the long run, however, Russia may gain political ground with respect to some of its controversial policies. Since 11 September, the US has taken a new approach towards Russia's military presence in Chechnya. The European Union (EU) and the US have repeatedly threatened Moscow with sanctions over evident disregard of human rights in the predominantly Muslim breakaway province of Chechnya. With the onset of the US bombing campaign in Afghanistan, Moscow was quick to point out to the Bush administration that US tactics were comparable to those used by the Russians in Chechnya. President Putin told the Americans in no uncertain terms that the Chechen situation could not be considered outside of the context of the US-led war against terrorism. Moscow is hoping to obtain a relatively free hand in Chechnya in exchange for its cooperation with the US. But Putin has been hesitant to commit to a military role, only specifying that Moscow is willing to give Washington access to its intelligence files. Russian officials have suggested that Russian officers who served in Afghanistan during the country's occupation by Russian forces would work as consultants to US military experts -- a strange twist of fate, considering it was the US-backed militias that drove the Russians out. Afghanistan is a formidable country for any invader: history has shown that some of the world's best armies, including those of the British and Soviet empires, were cowed into retreat in their attempts to conquer Afghanistan. The Taliban -- many of whom are former mujahedin fighters who received training from the CIA to expel the Soviet army -- are now the enemy, and those same Russian occupiers are a crucial US ally. Russia's willingness to assist the US in their war against the Taliban is, naturally, motivated by self-interest. Moscow has its own stakes in the war against Afghanistan and over the past several years has provided the Northern Alliance opposition forces with military support to fight the Taliban. Again, the lessons of history have proved reflexive: military commanders of the Northern Alliance were also among the fearless mujahedin who fought the Soviet occupation. If Moscow has edged closer to Washington in the wake of 11 September, there is one issue on which the Russians will not compromise: the so-called clash of civilisations that has erupted around the US's paranoia and need for retaliation. Though the US has stressed that it is not waging a war against Islam, Muslims the world over are still waiting to see evidence of this claim. Some 20 million Muslims live in Russia and Islam is considered the second of the four official religions. The country has common borders with numerous Muslim states and shares their strategic interests. In short, Moscow cannot afford to be seen as hostile to Islam. Addressing Germany's Bundestag, prominent Russian politician and former Prime Minister Yevgeni Primakov (whose German is flawless) warned against the dangers of dividing the world's states into "civilised" and "rogue" nations based on compliance with US actions. The largest country in the world, Russia straddles Europe and Asia, dooming its leadership to eternal manoeuvring between East and West. The world after 11 September has a very different geo-political map. The Kremlin knows that a new world order is in the process of being formed and Putin has brought Russia closer to the West by showing its readiness to join the US in its battle against international terrorism. Consequently, the Kremlin is hoping to get quick returns on this investment. In addition to an end to Western criticism of Russia over Chechnya, Moscow is seeking a greater share in global decision- making. A restructuring -- or even cancellation -- of the USSR's debt may also be expected as payback for Moscow's support in wiping out the Taliban. After all, the Kremlin is taking some significant risks by joining the US-led alliance against terrorism. Moscow's support of US attacks on the Taliban may eventually lead to serious discontent among Russians. Furthermore, the Kremlin risks losing its influence in Central Asia. Central Asian countries like Uzbekistan and Tajikistan originally put forward a similar position to that of Russia: they were only ready to provide the US and its allies with air corridors to transport humanitarian aid. A few days later, US troops and intelligence were already arriving in Uzbekistan. The Uzbek leadership quickly realised that it cannot afford to lose such a valuable chance to move closer to the US. In doing so, however, it must distance itself from Russian influence. Tashkent's goal has been clearly stated: with US aid, it hopes to take on the role of regional leader. Moscow's greatest concern right now is the world order that will emerge after the war in Afghanistan. Washington is evidently doing its best to use the pretext of the war to settle itself in Central Asia and strengthen its positions in the region. Russia may have something to say about that. From mark.jones at tiscali.co.uk Sat Nov 3 02:16:06 2001 From: mark.jones at tiscali.co.uk (Mark Jones) Date: Sat Jul 8 08:08:23 2006 Subject: [A-List] Felgenhauer: Russian military v. Putin-Bush Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.2.20011103090910.00a9e950@pop.tiscali.co.uk> [will the Russians buy into Putin's 'realist' embrace of the West, and does it matter what they think anyway? Mark] Moscow Times November 1, 2001 Putin Flying in Face of Elite By Pavel Felgenhauer After the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, Russia and the United States have obviously become closer than they were before. But will this alliance hold? Is this a truly long-term affair, or just a marriage of convenience for the purpose of fighting a common enemy in Afghanistan? It seems that President Vladimir Putin may be indeed trying to change Russia's long-term foreign and defense outlook. Putin has announced he is closing one of the last vestiges of Russian global might: a strategically important eavesdropping outpost in Cuba. Russian military intelligence, or GRU, is today still keeping a special communications brigade of some 1,600 men in Cuba, despite the Cold War being over for more than a decade. This brigade intercepts hundreds of millions of radio, telephone and other electronic communications ? government and private ? from the United States. The staff of the brigade works to decipher and sort out important information from the mass of data gathered. The GRU has other electronic listening posts on Russian territory. Planes and satellites also gather electronic intelligence data. However, the Cuban base was always considered a jewel in the crown of Russian military intelligence. Satellites simply cannot gather all the important signals. The United States, with the most advanced electronic eavesdropping program in the world, does not rely fully on satellites. Last spring, a mid-air collision between a U.S. spyplane and a Chinese fighter caused a serious international crisis. But the United States still continues to fly electronic intelligence-gathering missions to foreign shores and keeps listening posts in foreign countries. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Russian military secured the ongoing use of the base in Cuba. The lease cost $200 million a year, but a deputy defense minister told me in 1993 that this was a sound investment. The Cuban base gathered not only military-related data, but also lots of commercial and private secrets. Moreover, the $200 million was paid not in cash, but in barter: military equipment, spare parts for Soviet-made armaments, oil, etc. Some of these barter goods could only be sold to other customers as scrap. Russia was not bound to pay any rent until 2004 for its naval and air base in Vietnam, which will be closed in January 2002, at the same time as the base in Cuba. The official Kremlin spin that the overseas bases are being closed to economize and free up more money for other defense projects is not taken seriously by anyone in Moscow. In 2000, Russia reportedly had a trade surplus of some $46 billion. The Kremlin could surely find the money to pay for the Cuban base, if it really wanted to. The Cuban government, which received some shared intelligence information, has strongly protested the closure of the Russian eavesdropping installation and has accused Moscow of trying to appease Washington. Many influential figures in Moscow are also openly questioning Putin's decision. Military leaders, diplomats from the Foreign Ministry and people connected to the intelligence community are for the first time freely challenging Putin's decisions. There is open talk of "grave mistakes" made by Putin in his attempt to move closer to the West, of the Kremlin unilaterally surrendering strategic assets, and of sacrificing Russia's true national interests in a fatal attempt to integrate with the corrupt West. The opposition is almost unanimous and Putin's authority may be challenged even more brazenly, if, as it has been rumored, Moscow and Washington are on the verge of finding a formula to jointly abandon or seriously modify the 1972 ABM Treaty, in order to allow the United States to develop missile defense. If Putin, along with the base in Cuba, abandons the ABM Treaty and with it Moscow's opposition to NATO enlargement, while continuing to support the war on terrorism, Russia may indeed become a close long-term ally of the West. Ongoing economic reforms that have already drastically improved the local business environment make Russia ready to undergo a much needed revolution of modernization by absorbing a lot of Western capital and technologies. To make this come about, Putin will have to replace a large part of his elite and intimidate the rest into total submission. Show trials, arrests and the ouster of high officials are inevitable, as has happened many times before in Russia when the country made a sudden U-turn and the existing elite was dismissed. Pavel Felgenhauer is an independent defense analyst. From mark.jones at tiscali.co.uk Sat Nov 3 02:20:03 2001 From: mark.jones at tiscali.co.uk (Mark Jones) Date: Sat Jul 8 08:08:23 2006 Subject: [A-List] Shevardnadze puts off Europe trip amid crisis Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.2.20011103091614.00a9ca88@pop.tiscali.co.uk> By David Stern in Tashkent and Andrew Jack in Moscow Published: November 2 2001 18:10 | Last Updated: November 2 2001 21:49 President Eduard Shevardnadze of Georgia on Friday delayed a trip to Europe to manage a fresh political crisis in the southern Caucasus state as hundreds of people demonstrated against his administration in the capital, Tbilisi. His decision came after he dismissed his cabinet on Thursday and the speaker of the parliament resigned when thousands marched through the streets to protest at a clampdown by the authorities on the private Rustavi-2 television station, a strong critic of the government. The latest round of political theatre in the former Soviet state could prove a serious blow to the already weak position of the wily 73-year-old president. Many believe he will not quit, because he is now regarded as the single figure who can assure stability in the country. The protests coincide with renewed tension with neighbouring Russia, which accuses Georgia of harbouring rebels from the republic of Chechnya. Georgia in turn says Russia is behind military raids across its borders and is bolstering separatists in its breakaway region of Abkhazia. Protesters last week attacked Georgia's rampant corruption and economic stagnation, and called for Mr Shevardnadze's departure. The president - respected in the west for his previous role as Mikhail Gorbachev's perestroika-era Soviet foreign minister - is reviled by many Georgians, with one polling company putting his approval rating in the single digits. "Shevardnadze's position right now is very bad. He is under a lot of pressure, especially from the student protesters," said Alexander Rondeli, a Georgian political analyst. The most recent events follow a turbulent summer that witnessed massive street protests over the murder of Giorgi Sanaya, a popular young journalist, for which some blamed government officials. Observers say the coming weeks may determine the country's future political path, as Mr Shevardnadze will be forced to address growing calls for reform from the public and within his own political party, the Citizens Union of Georgia (CUG). "The next two to three weeks will show where Shevardnadze stands. He will have to appoint a new cabinet and speaker of parliament, and there are calls to introduce changes to the constitution to create a system with the post of a strong prime minister," said one western expert. Some say that the path may have been cleared for long-overdue political and economic measures. Two top officials considered among the most recalcitrant, Kakha Targamadze, the interior minister, and Gia Meparishvili, the prosecutor general, were included in the purge. Observers say that, as a result, in the struggle between communist-era officials and young reformers within the CUG, the reformers' hand may have been strengthened. Others, however, are less optimistic, saying that though Georgia's power struggles provide for great viewing, they are the last thing needed in this volatile Caucasus state with a history of internal strife. "Georgia has not had an effective government for a long time," said one businessman based in Tbilisi. "The proof is that a few demonstrators can force it to resign." from FT.com From mark.jones at tiscali.co.uk Sat Nov 3 06:16:02 2001 From: mark.jones at tiscali.co.uk (Mark Jones) Date: Sat Jul 8 08:08:23 2006 Subject: [A-List] marriages of convenience In-Reply-To: <5.1.0.14.1.20011102140904.00a4eec0@pop3.norton.antivirus> References: Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.2.20011103120453.00ab13e0@pop.tiscali.co.uk> At 02/11/2001 22:28, John Gulick wrote: > have we crossed some qualitatively new thresshold en route to the > formation of a global ruling class ? Are you arguing that this "formation of a global ruling class" is happening, or asking for *disproofs*? What is the evidence for this? People like Manuel Castells staked their careers on this kind of globaloney, but the "world system" (whatever that is) has been more integrated before, 1873-1914 for eg or between AD 3-476 to take two periods at random. All we know for sure is that such experiments always ended badly... The hypostasis and formalisation of the American Empire (if that is what is now happening) is surely a sign of weakness and the terminal decline of US hegemony. It amounts to abandoning even the fig leaves of rationalisation and democratic pretension and the adoption of brute force and simple coercion, of routine assassination, torture and of fear as political methods of last resort ("You are free. You have the freedom to stand up and sing God Bless America. Or you are a self-declared Enemy of the People, subject to denial of rights and arbitrary execution.") How on earth can such a historical monstrosity see the light of day? Think about what is involved! Today hundreds of millions of people yearn for revenge and retribution. Hatred of America is extremely widespread, is it not? From Russia to the Middle East to Africa and South Asia, not to speak of Latin America, people do not see bin Laden as CNN would have us see him. The US world-empire gives new meaning to the notion of a Prison of Nations. Such an empire cannot survive without procuring some degree of mass consent. How can this mass consent be manufactured? Indeed, is this even an issue for men like Wolfowitz, Rumsfeld, Powell--not to speak of Bush himself? Well, let's assume it can. Let's assume for a moment that the frenzied debates ongoing in the White house are not about the best ways to slaughter people in the Middle East and Asia, but are about how to conciliate, to reconstruct, to ameliorate, to have a 'peace process' etc. I do not believe for a moment that the present leaders of the US have any interest at all in the question of obtaining consent from their subjects. Fear, mass terror, the politics of Exterminism, the Highest and Final Stage of Imperialism, is their game. But anyway, let's suppose. Can US hegemony transition this crisis by combining unsustainable, ultimately self-destructive coercion and state-terror with some kind of neo-keynesian, global social democratic synthesis, a la Tony Blair? Without this, it surely cannot survive. B-52's alone are not enough, even together with US inspired, trained, paid shadow forces, assassination squads, remote-controlled assassination technology. But even if the White House wanted it, Tony Blair's 3rd Way is, of course, never gonna happen. Not in this universe, not with this Republican Party and this Administration: because to carry thru such a policy would require a transfer of wealth and resources from the West to the Rest which is incompatible with the continuation of capitalist economy in its present form. Since the world's energy supplies are too low, and since the environmental dangers of increasing energy consumption are anyway catastrophic, it's clear from the get-go that not only would the Golden Billion have to sacrifice half or more of its energy and material consumption: there would have to be a wrenching reconstruction of Western economies and productive systems. Long before people get the point of this, and acknowledge its inevitability if the even-direr alternative of complete civilisational collapse is to be avoided, we shall be, and probably already are, too far into the vicious spiral of collapse: in short, it is already too late, not merely because of the political difficulty involved, not just because of systemic inertial momentum, which is too great for adjustment to be technically possible in the relevant time-frame: but ultimately because the capitalist world-system is already too much in the grip of positive-feedback mechanisms which are producing uncontrollable cascades of historical change. Tony Blair's much-vaunted global third way suffers from the fatal combination, therefore, of being both too little and too much. Too little to make any real difference, too much to be politically acceptable to anyone in Washington. You'd have to propose a significantly more realistic programme of global equity, amelioration and renewal than Tony Blair has done, to see any future other than one of the there following scenarios: (a) best case option: continuing cycle of low-intensity wars, terrorist outrages in the metropoles and abrading and collapse of peripheral states/societies; this is what intellectual laziness, avarice, lemming instinct and blind denial makes popular, but my advice, don't expect it to happen like this; or: (b) neutral case scenario: unsustainable damage to the core states of the imperial system caused by such things as detonation of civil nuclear installations, hazchem etc, followed by collapse of Asian nuclear powers, engulfing war in the middle east, collapse of the global economy etc. Or scenario (c) (i think this will happen): there will be a succession of catastrophic wars and pestilences which will reduce the human population to a few hundred millions. The temperate, industrialised zones will be too polluted, the soil too exhausted, the mines too plundered, to support functioning productive societies. The topical and subtropical zones, parched out by anthropogenic climate change, will be incapable of growing enough food. Each step of the way into this cycle of civilisational decline, we become fleetingly alarmed but then quickly inured, pacified, unable to register change, let the frog boiling. This October has been the warmest in Britain since climate records began in 1692. Even two years ago, the headlines would have been full of terriofying predictions about the effects of climate change. The temperature today is 2.6 deg C above the historic norm. The IPCC says such rises represent a fundamental threat to all life on earth, if they are sustained and not just aberrations. But no-one even notices any more. There has not been a single centimetre of newsprint in the British "serious" press, that I have seen, even commenting on October's extraordinary and menacing warmth. The Pentagon (should we call it now the Quadragon?) might be rendered uninhabitable, and the whole of Washington too, for that matter, by the simple expedient of detonating anywhere in the Beltway a few hundred grammes of Caesium-137. A briefcase, a stick of dynamite and a timer is all else you need. Who says it can never happen? But the truly terrifying thing is that when it does happen, it will trigger such a cascade of new horrors that even the loss of the nation's capital will soon no longer register on the frozen consciousness of the US population. Think about it, and tell me again that the Next American Century, complete with its World Empire, is really a possibility. Mark PS The Taleban is a child not merely of the CIA but also, perhaps primarily, of the IMF and its SAP's and debt collection methods in Pakistan and elsewhere. This is what has driven people frantic and driven them into the arms of fundamentalism. The IMF was the recruiting-sergeant of the Taleban just as the CIA and DoD was its quartermaster. Given this degree of self-destructiveness, given this capacity for conjuring up its own gravediggers, it's hard to see how US imperialism can hope to survive. If not now, then later, but the subject has got gangrene and cannot survive. From lnp3 at panix.com Sat Nov 3 06:37:06 2001 From: lnp3 at panix.com (Louis Proyect) Date: Sat Jul 8 08:08:23 2006 Subject: [A-List] marriages of convenience In-Reply-To: <5.1.0.14.1.20011102140904.00a4eec0@pop3.norton.antivirus> References: <5.1.0.14.2.20011103120453.00ab13e0@pop.tiscali.co.uk> Message-ID: <200111031336.IAA06402@menyapa.cc.columbia.edu> On Sat, 03 Nov 2001 13:15:00 +0000, Mark Jones wrote: >The Taleban is a child not merely of the CIA but >also, perhaps primarily, of the IMF and its >SAP's and debt collection methods in Pakistan >and elsewhere. This is what has driven people >frantic and driven them into the arms of >fundamentalism. The IMF was the recruiting >-sergeant of the Taleban just as the CIA and >DoD was its quartermaster. In fact the Mahdist revolt of the 1880s was produced indirectly by Egyptian debt to the IMF of those days, namely Baring Bank and its cohorts in London. In fact Egypt was directly ruled by Pasha Bering through the 1900s. Rapid "development" in Egypt, a product of accelerated cotton production to satisfy world markets because of disruptions resulting from the US civil war, was financed by loans at usurious rates. When it became impossible to pay them, Egypt intensified its exploitation of Sudan, its colony. In the name of Allah, the Mahdi roused the dervishes who with sword and spear defeated the modern British army with its machine guns and cannons. -- Louis Proyect, lnp3@panix.com on 11/03/2001 Marxism list: http://www.marxmail.org From tomzbox at hotmail.com Sat Nov 3 11:44:03 2001 From: tomzbox at hotmail.com (Tom Warren) Date: Sat Jul 8 08:08:23 2006 Subject: [A-List] marriages of convenience Message-ID: Writes Mark: > >The hypostasis and formalisation of the American Empire (if that is what >is > >now happening) is surely a sign of weakness and the terminal decline of >US > >hegemony. I ask the question you asked: "What is the evidence of this?" One could also read this as a strengthening of the hegemony, ... we no longer perceive any need to sugar-coat it. A few months ago we were writhing around avoiding an honest explanation for the bombs falling on Kosovo and Bosnia. Imagine the difference in hegemonic strength between those Yugoslavian rationalizations and what we'd say today. "Hey, give it up, get over the line or we'll bomb your ass back to the Stone Age. Don't ask why." > >It amounts to abandoning even the fig leaves of rationalisation > >and democratic pretension and the adoption of brute force and simple > >coercion, of routine assassination, torture and of fear as political > >methods of last resort ("You are free. You have the freedom to stand up >and > >sing God Bless America. Or you are a self-declared Enemy of the People, > >subject to denial of rights and arbitrary execution.") And this abandonment is read by you as a sign of weakness? Perhaps moral weakness, perhaps weakness of character by some in charge in the Whitehouse I won't be naming names) But certainly not hegemonic weakness, political, economic or military weakness. I still accuse you of wishfully thinking the door is rotten, Mark. You are correct that this is a signpost on the road to weakness, but the road still must pass through "Stronger-than-we-are-now"-ville first. > >Such an empire cannot survive without procuring some degree of mass > >consent. How can this mass consent be manufactured? By some crazy moslem fanatics slamming planes into buildings. >>I do not believe for a moment that the present leaders of the US have any > >interest at all in the question of obtaining consent from their subjects. > >Fear, mass terror, the politics of Exterminism, the Highest and Final >Stage > >of Imperialism, is their game. But anyway, let's suppose. And the Highest and Final stage is yet to come, is it not? Mr. "Weakness" is not yet knocking on the door of the Pentagon. > >Can US hegemony transition this crisis by combining unsustainable, > >ultimately self-destructive coercion and state-terror with some kind of > >neo-keynesian, global social democratic synthesis, a la Tony Blair? Remind yourself of that time period you selected: 3-470 -something AD. I figure we got another three hundred years of this "two-bit Machiavellian" vengeance to wreak at the current rate of "weakening". > >Without this, it surely cannot survive. B-52's alone ... > >...US inspired, trained, paid shadow forces, assassination > >squads, remote-controlled assassination technology ... > >Not in this universe, not with this Republican Party and this > >Administration: because to carry thru such a policy would require a > >transfer of wealth and resources from the West to the Rest which is > >incompatible with the continuation of capitalist economy in its present > >form. Wishful thinking? You seem to overlook our Imperial lesson plans; we have at least learned enough Jiu Jitsu to recognize that one uses one's opponent's strength to flip him. ('member ol' Ronnie Reagan?) The transfer of resources will be from them to our banks and oil depositories. We may spend a few bux on Tomahawks, but that's investment, not capital. > >Since the world's energy supplies are too low, and since the > >environmental dangers of increasing energy consumption are anyway > >catastrophic, it's clear from the get-go that not only would the Golden > >Billion have to sacrifice half or more of its energy and material > >consumption: there would have to be a wrenching reconstruction of Western > >economies and productive systems. Long before people get the point of >this, > >and acknowledge its inevitability if the even-direr alternative of >complete > >civilisational collapse is to be avoided, we shall be, and probably >already > >are, too far into the vicious spiral of collapse: in short, it is already > >too late, not merely because of the political difficulty involved, not >just > >because of systemic inertial momentum, which is too great for adjustment >to > >be technically possible in the relevant time-frame: but ultimately >because > >the capitalist world-system is already too much in the grip of > >positive-feedback mechanisms which are producing uncontrollable cascades >of > >historical change. Yeah! NOW you are mentioning some things that WILL undermine the hegemony! Only you're failing to provide me with much faith that you can link THOSE factors to our current little vengeance-seeking nine-eleven tirade. We only have to smear AL Kayda and Ben Laden and singe a few more whiskers on Sadam to keep the ball rolling! We can continue this kind of short-sighted Imperialism for a very long time ... at the VERY least until 2035 when one or another of Hanson's predictions taps us on the shoulder and points to the REAL dragon that will eat us all, Imperial and oppressed alike. Then we'll just switch to MaCarthyism and declare the real war, the one on eco-terrorists. (I assume you and I will be two of the first on the lists of usual suspects to round up, thanks to our new email monitoring programme. Gawd, I hate the thought of being in a cell with Jay Hanson and Stan!) > >Or scenario (c) (i think this will happen): there will be a succession of > >catastrophic wars and pestilences which will reduce the human population >to > >a few hundred millions. The temperate, industrialised zones will be too > >polluted, the soil too exhausted, the mines too plundered, to support > >functioning productive societies. The topical and subtropical zones, > >parched out by anthropogenic climate change, will be incapable of growing > >enough food. > > > >Each step of the way into this cycle of civilisational decline, we become > >fleetingly alarmed but then quickly inured, pacified, unable to register > >change, let the frog boiling. This October has been the warmest in >Britain > >since climate records began in 1692. Even two years ago, the headlines > >would have been full of terriofying predictions about the effects of > >climate change. The temperature today is 2.6 deg C above the historic >norm. > >The IPCC says such rises represent a fundamental threat to all life on > >earth, if they are sustained and not just aberrations. > > > >But no-one even notices any more. There has not been a single centimetre >of > >newsprint in the British "serious" press, that I have seen, even >commenting > >on October's extraordinary and menacing warmth. > > > >The Pentagon (should we call it now the Quadragon?) might be rendered > >uninhabitable, and the whole of Washington too, for that matter, by the > >simple expedient of detonating anywhere in the Beltway a few hundred > >grammes of Caesium-137. A briefcase, a stick of dynamite and a timer is >all > >else you need. Who says it can never happen? But the truly terrifying >thing > >is that when it does happen, it will trigger such a cascade of new >horrors > >that even the loss of the nation's capital will soon no longer register >on > >the frozen consciousness of the US population. Yep. all of the above is certainly the most plausible. ... now you're talkin'! And they're gonna put a new facade on the Pentagon, the plans call for a large statue of two Geo. Bushes pissing on a small map of the Middle East in the Plaza where the plane landed > >Think about it, and tell me again that the Next American Century, >complete > >with its World Empire, is really a possibility. > > > >Mark If it were not, Blair would not be dancing around in his Cowardly Lion suit crying "Put 'em up! Put 'em up!" and France would CERTAINLY not be whining for a place at the table this week. A whole lotta guys are jumping on the World Empire bandwagon, from Syria, fer chrissakes, to North Korea! (I will NOT mention Putin and his love-affair with NATO! I will not , I will not ...) The Next American Century is a reality, unfortunately, my friend. Yet, you correctly describe the end game. You just didn't play enough of the Risk board game in graduate school to see the bigger pitcher. Wish away, however, it's good for the soul. ... and Stan may fix things before it comes to that, there is always that hope. love, tom "I fear that we have awakened a sleeping giant and filled him with a terrible resolve ... " -- Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, Dec. 8th, 1941 _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp From julfb at sinectis.com.ar Sat Nov 3 15:11:03 2001 From: julfb at sinectis.com.ar (Julio Fernández Baraibar) Date: Sat Jul 8 08:08:23 2006 Subject: [A-List] marriages of convenience Message-ID: <200111032210.TAA06213@arwen.sinectis.com.ar> All the article was very intelligent. but this paragraph is very, very clever: > The Taleban is a child not merely of the CIA but also, perhaps primarily, > of the IMF and its SAP's and debt collection methods in Pakistan and > elsewhere. This is what has driven people frantic and driven them into the > arms of fundamentalism. The IMF was the recruiting-sergeant of the Taleban > just as the CIA and DoD was its quartermaster. > Imperialism's economics creates the monster and the so called "irrationality" of poor people. Julio Fernández Baraibar From mark.jones at tiscali.co.uk Sun Nov 4 03:24:03 2001 From: mark.jones at tiscali.co.uk (Mark Jones) Date: Sat Jul 8 08:08:23 2006 Subject: [A-List] marriages of convenience In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.2.20011104102122.00ab7bd8@pop.tiscali.co.uk> At 03/11/2001 18:43, you wrote: >Writes Mark: > >> >The hypostasis and formalisation of the American Empire (if that is what is >> >now happening) is surely a sign of weakness and the terminal decline of US >> >hegemony. > >I ask the question you asked: "What is the evidence of this?" One could >also read this as a strengthening of the hegemony, ... Tom, you are right to upbraid me with making what can be seen as unproven assertions, with no effort to prove them and making them in a bombastic way what's more. Yes, I accept that we need to make detailed investigations of what is happening between Russia, China and the US in particular. Mark From mstainsby at tao.ca Sun Nov 4 03:24:26 2001 From: mstainsby at tao.ca (Macdonald Stainsby) Date: Sat Jul 8 08:08:23 2006 Subject: [A-List] Urgent! Anti-war all student coalition Message-ID: <024601c164b8$86d5c080$5b075318@vc.shawcable.net> Coming up on November 10-11, 2001 in Berkeley, California is the premier two-day conference to establish an all-campuses of North Americas' West Coast coalition of students to fight this war. I am contacting you on behalf of the organisation Mobilization Against War And Racism (MAWAR)- and even more specifically the student committee within the larger group. MAWAR began as a conference of some 300 concerned and scared citizens (including, of course, but not limited to students) on September 15, 2001. Since that time we have organized three demonstrations, begun a massive educational newspaper, set up committees for grass roots outreach and much more. Essentially, we have answered the public need for a strong anti-war voice emanating from the public itself. The student coalition was formed almost spontaneously at a large planning session for MAWAR. We were talking amongst the larger group about all the different student groups that were popping up on many of the campuses around the city. This includes but is not limited to: Simon Fraser, UBC, Douglas, Capilano, Kwantlen and Langara colleges. We decided that night that we realised (obviously) that our power is greater in larger numbers. We set up a "rolling teach in" week- where each campus would put on a teach in on the major issues of the day, history of the Mid to far East, organising on campuses against the Vietnam war, alternative media- and many other immediately burning issues. The teach ins we held were all a success, including the most important one at the end of our week of rolling teach-ins: the all-campus one that was all day, Oct 28th. This was held- due to lack of alternate venues- out in the far reaches of the UBC campus on the morning after many people had attended the Halloween parties. We still received nearly 200 people over the day. This was all the day after the larger MAWAR coalition (of which we in the student committee are all members as well) put together a march and demonstration from the local library to the American consulate. MAWAR has filled the void for a loud voice against the war, and the student committees are finding fertile ground for the expansion of the anti-war movement on the campuses. the skies over Afghanistan may be dark with bombers, but there is always the light of hope that comes from such times. We received notice of the upcoming all-western continental conference in Berkely only recently. Like so many grassroots organisations, we are hopelessly underfunded. To aid in our grassroots organising, we put the bulk of our resources directly into reproducing our fine newspaper (online at: http://www.tao.ca/~mayworks/911/1/index.shtml ), which is our most important tool. I will make several pleas here. 1) we need to be as big and loud a voice as possible. We in the student movement already know the urgency of internationalism. Our first starting place on that note is the conference coming up in Berkeley. It is very important to have our Canadian, Vancouver voice heard at this event. We feel it is very importnat that we help and actively participate in the formation of this new group, which I for one hope will stand in the great tradition of the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) that was so instrumental in helping build the resitance to the Vietnam war. We have an even better starting place than they did, so our chances are great. 2) We want and request any and all donations possible to sponsoring 1 or 2 participants from Vancouver to head down to the conference. If people are able to help with the funding and sponsoring of some of the new, young radical student groups here in making our voice as loud and co-ordinated as possible as needed, please contact myself at 604- 525-9171 or mstainsby@tao.ca or you can call Sima Zerehi at 604 209 7703. We obviously need these funds immediately, if at all possible. Arrangements for how to make contributions directly can be worked out. If you read this far, all there is left to say is a word: Peace. sincerely, Macdonald Stainsby on behalf of MAWAR and the MAWAR student coalition. ------------------------------------------- Macdonald Stainsby Rad-Green List: Radical anti-capitalist environmental discussion. http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/rad-green ---- Leninist-International: Building bridges in the tradition of V.I. Lenin. http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/leninist-international ---- In the contradiction lies the hope. --Bertholt Brecht From jlgulick at sfo.com Sun Nov 4 03:24:54 2001 From: jlgulick at sfo.com (John Gulick) Date: Sat Jul 8 08:08:23 2006 Subject: [A-List] marriages of convenience In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.1.20011103132336.00a5bcb0@pop3.norton.antivirus> Mark wrote: > >Are you arguing that this "formation of a global ruling class" is > >happening, or asking for *disproofs*? I knew in advance that you don't buy the "global ruling class" line, so I was hoping that you'd furnish some perspicacious disproofs, and that others would weigh in with evidence on either side of the fence. And that perhaps along the way my own fuzzy thoughts (and shaky command of basic empirical facts) would be clarified. > >What is the evidence for this? People like Manuel Castells staked their > >careers on this kind of globaloney, but the "world system" (whatever that > >is) has been more integrated before, 1873-1914 for eg or between AD 3-476 > >to take two periods at random. All we know for sure is that such > >experiments always ended badly... To be sure, Castells is not the only one. (What separates Castells from many others is that his prosecution of the globaloney line is based on sheer academic opportunism, not principled argument -- incidentally, the same goes for his mechanical structural "Marxism"-by-the-numbers of the 1970's, which yielded many dreadfully indigestible urban sociology tracts). You're also spot on in suggesting that a long-term historical perspective is absolutely crucial. Again, my substantive knowledge of the later days of British Empire is very weak, but I believe many have convincingly shown that in the late 19th/early 20th centuries, the world economy was more "globalized" than today (to vulgarize, the big powers had relatively high proportions of FDI in, financial claims on, market penetration of, etc. one another's home country and non-colonial "blocs"). This did not mean, quite obviously, that inter-imperialist rivalry had dissolved under the friendly reign of the British navy over the high seas. I suppose what I find arresting about post-911 geopolitics (at a sheer phenomonological level, having not read about it extensively or thought about it very clearly), is the degree to which the US war in Central/South Asia is hastening the rearticulation of Russia and China with the global system. In the Russian case, Putin appears to be trying to pull off what Yeltsin had zero legitimacy to pull off -- craftily using avowed moral and logistical support for the "international war on terrorism" to consolidate Russia's dependent integration into world capitalism. The outcome will be to turn Russia for once and all into something akin to Pinochet's Chile, on a much vaster scale and with grander implications for the balance of forces among the world's ruling classes. Russia's robber baron energy, media, and banking moguls will no longer be just the detritus of state socialist collapse, but be firmly entrenched as Russia's official dependent ruling class, this time with more organized and sustained state backing. The PRC case is quite different. I think one could successfully argue that Beijing is peddling its diplomatic support for the US war as a bargaining chip, one that it hopes will allow it to pursue world capitalist integration on its own neo-mercantilist terms, despite its admission to the WTO. (Yes, I am aware that this is a fatally nebulous formulation). The problem remains the same as before for the PRC's "state capitalist" (or whatever you want to call them) elite -- will prostrating China before the law of value on a world scale set off uncontrollable popular unrest ? And will it lead to the break-up of the coherence of that very same "state capitalist" elite, such that it can pursue any kind of autonomous accumulation strategy ? So this dialogue has proven to have therapeutic value after all. I guess what I'm arguing (or at least proposing) is not that post-911 geopolitics is expediting the formation of a "global ruling class," but that it is instead hastening the pace of dependent integration in Russia, and raising anew the political contradictions of world capitalist integration in the PRC. And, given that post-911 geopolitics may well be quickening these tendencies, it naturally raises the question of the unequal interdependency of the world's ruling classes. But you are perfectly correct to imply that in my initial formulation I too casually equated deference to US military dominance with the possible emergence of a "global ruling class." And, even supposing that such a facile equation can be made, you also appropriately suggest that the viability of US military dominance itself deserves a diagnosis -- taking into account the resistance of the wretched of the earth (under whatever ideological banner), the nearing exhaustion of the bio-physical environment's "Promethean fuels" (hydrocarbons and soil), etc. But that is an analytically separate set of issues for another day. John G. -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: text/html Size: 5117 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://lists.econ.utah.edu/pipermail/a-list/attachments/20011104/69b5e1a2/attachment.txt From mark.jones at tiscali.co.uk Sun Nov 4 03:26:03 2001 From: mark.jones at tiscali.co.uk (Mark Jones) Date: Sat Jul 8 08:08:23 2006 Subject: [A-List] fwd: (Book Review) Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.2.20011104102459.02ad8d00@pop.tiscali.co.uk> Subject: Trust Us, We're Experts (Book Review) BioMedNet BOOK REVIEW http://news.bmn.com/hmsbeagle/109/reviews/review Trust Us, We're Experts How Industry Manipulates Science and Gambles With Your Future by Sheldon Rampton and John Stauber Reviewed by Sibylle Hechtel Posted August 31, 2001 ? Issue 109 Review It's not often you read a book that dramatically changes your outlook or opinions. Most books amuse, entertain, or inform. Trust Us, We're Experts shocks. It easily could lead the uninitiated to question their assumptions about "facts" and "truth" in the marketplace. Authors Rampton and Stauber of the Center for Media and Democracy http://www.prwatch.org/cmd/> chronicle the history of public relations, from Edward Bernays' laying the groundwork for the fledgling industry in the 1920s to the power it wields over public policy today. According to the authors, Bernays, a disciple of Sigmund Freud, "created more institutes, funds, institutions, and foundations than Rockefeller, Carnegie, and Filene together." In his book Propaganda, Bernays argued that scientific manipulation of public opinion is key. "A relatively small number of persons," he wrote, " . . . pull the wires which control the public mind." Bernays believed that "[s]omebody interested in leading the crowd needs to appeal not to logic but to unconscious motivation." Trust Us, We're Experts shows how the world's richest and most powerful corporations do this. The authors describe how the tobacco industry first hired movie stars to sell cigarettes and then spent millions of dollars to counter findings that cigarettes cause cancer, a strategy based on the so-called third-party technique and on testimonials. "'How can the persuader reach these groups that make up the large public?' Bernays asked. . . . 'He can do so through their leaders . . . . The group leader thus becomes a key figure in the molding of public opinion.'" The third-party technique distinguishes PR from advertising. "The best use of a PR firm will be when the firm supplies useful information to influential reporters and analysts who have large audiences." This strategy camouflages the actual source of information, encourages conformity to vested interests while pretending to encourage independence, and replaces facts with emotion-laden symbolism. I was particularly appalled at the story of scientist Arpad Pusztai. Pusztai identified troubling results in rats fed genetically modified potatoes. When he announced his findings, his bosses at the Rowett Research Institute in Aberdeen, Scotland, suspended him (he soon retired) and discredited his research. Before reading this account, I had believed the official version: Pusztai did shoddy research. But this book indicates that Pusztai's work was fine - its only fault was that it went against major commercial interests. Another disturbing case involved psychologist Claire Ernhart of Case Western Reserve University. Ernhart, who received grants from the industry-funded International Lead Zinc Research Organization, also serves as a courtroom "expert witness." A physician, Herbert Needleman, published results showing that lead-exposed children are more hyperactive and suffer more attention deficit. In 1981, Ernhart formally accused Needleman of having conducted flawed research. An Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) investigation found inconsequential statistical errors. The world's largest PR firm, Hill and Knowlton, then sent a draft copy of the EPA report to journalists together with a cover letter claiming that the EPA panel had rejected Needleman's findings. When the EPA reversed its position and adopted Needleman's findings, Hill and Knowlton continued to circulate the draft report. In 1991, Ernhart wrote to the National Institutes of Health charging Needleman with scientific misconduct. In 1992 Needleman obtained an open hearing to confront his accusers. Ernhart and another psychologist claimed Needleman had manipulated variables to produce biased, anti-lead results. Needleman's scientific defenders showed that even without these variables, his results remained the same: For every 10 parts per million increase of lead in a child's baby tooth, there was a two-point drop in IQ. The authors recount similar cases in which millions of dollars were paid to PR companies by corporations whose interests ranged from the food and restaurant businesses to the oil and chemical industries. The issues involved industrial diseases and work-related illnesses; safety and risk assessment; and the impact of organochlorines such as DDT, PCBs, and dioxin, chemicals that can disrupt hormone metabolism. Rampton and Stauber continue with a description of the battle between environmentalists and the biotech food industry. They note that many of the world's largest chemical corporations, such as Monsanto, Novartis, Hoechst, Pharmacia, Dow Chemical, and DuPont, shifted their investments from chemicals to food and pharmaceuticals. The investigative journalists conclude that "government regulators are not presently functioning to safeguard the public's best interest." As an obvious example of abuse, they cite the story of one regulator, a former Monsanto attorney, who helped draft an FDA policy and later left the FDA to return to work for Monsanto. Trust Us, We're Experts also considers the effect of big money on universities and scientific journals, describing instances in which tobacco companies paid 13 scientists $156,000 to write letters to influential medical journals. Chapter 9 looks at the concept of "junk science," a self-serving term coined by corporate attorneys, lobbyists, PR firms, and industry-funded "think tanks" to discredit scientific and medical studies that might threaten corporate profits. In chapter 10, the authors discuss another problem closely linked to industry: global warming. They also address recent severe weather events, such as the breaking off of three large icebergs from the Antarctic ice shelf in May of 2000. As an example of a corporate contribution to the debate, the authors tell the story of a PR representative of the American Petroleum Institute who outlined a plan to recruit scientists without "a long history of visibility and/or participation in the climate change debate." They would have $5 million over two years, including $600,000 to develop a cadre of 20 "respected climate scientists" who were to "recruit . . . a team of five independent scientists to participate in media outreach. These scientific spokesmodels would be sent around to meet with science writers . . . thereby raising questions about and undercutting the 'prevailing scientific wisdom.'" At times, Rampton and Stauber can be na?ve or unrealistic. They bemoan the increasing dependence of science on government funding and lament the loss of the "gentleman scientist" of an earlier era. But when wealthy scientists attempt research using their own money today, the science community brands them amateurs and accords them little respect. The authors also question scientific journals' use of page charges: "Bear in mind that authors can pay to have scientific findings published, even in some peer-reviewed journals." But most journals charge per page to cover publication costs, and everybody pays the same amount. Page charges stem from journals' financial needs, not from a cynical willingness to profit from otherwise unpublishable research. Before reading this book, I was an enthusiastic supporter of biotechnology and genetically modified (GM) foods. Now I'm not so sure. Last summer, I debated GM foods with a fervent opponent. I argued that they could provide vitamin A in rice for developing nations, and produce bananas that could be used as vaccines for children in the third world. I still find these goals desirable, but I'm now more skeptical. I ascribed distrust of GM foods to ignorance or technophobia. After reading this book, I fear that my enthusiastic support resulted partly from ignorance - not of the science, but of the politics. This book, which is well researched and includes 33 pages of footnotes and references, is an excellent primer for readers not familiar with the manipulation of public opinion. A major strength is its help in directing readers to relevant information, and instruction on how to investigate problems affecting local communities. ----------------------- Sibylle Hechtel is a freelance writer whose articles' topics include science and rock climbing. As an undergraduate, she climbed Yosemite's El Capitan with Beverly Johnson in 1973. This was the first all-female ascent of one of the most difficult rock climbs in the world. She continued her graduate studies at the University of California at Irvine, where she wrote for Summit and the American Alpine Journal, and worked as a TV stunt woman and model for a Coca-Cola commercial. After finishing her Ph.D., she did research on mitochondrial DNA at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, and then took a job as a lecturer at Cal Tech. After four years of performing labs in basements without windows, she left academia to join expeditions around the world: first Western climbers in the Ak-Su range (Kyrghistan) in 1987; Everest in 1988; and the Austrian Women's Expedition to Shishapangma, Tibet, in 1994 (the 13th or 14th highest peak in the world).She lives in Colorado, where she spends her days off climbing and teaching skiing in the winter. From mark.jones at tiscali.co.uk Sun Nov 4 03:32:03 2001 From: mark.jones at tiscali.co.uk (Mark Jones) Date: Sat Jul 8 08:08:23 2006 Subject: [A-List] Doha? Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.2.20011104103045.02b3f918@pop.tiscali.co.uk> What is happening at Doha? Anyone know? Mark From mark.jones at tiscali.co.uk Sun Nov 4 03:49:03 2001 From: mark.jones at tiscali.co.uk (Mark Jones) Date: Sat Jul 8 08:08:23 2006 Subject: [A-List] simmons on n sea peaking Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.2.20011104104654.02ad8aa0@pop.tiscali.co.uk> The North Sea: Oil Production Has Peaked! The GOM Model Must Come To The North Sea Norway and the United Kingdom ("U.K.") North Sea crude oil and liquids production peaked in 2000 at 5.9 million barrels oil per day ("bopd"). This production performance capped an impressive decade of production growth, which saw production grow 55% from 3.8 million bopd in 1991. The North Sea has changed. The "easy" production growth of the 1990s is over. High depletion rates and declining field sizes in both the U.K. and Norway dictate that 2000 was the peak production year for the North Sea. The Deepwater, Atlantic Margin, Norwegian Sea and Barents Sea regions offer opportunities for production growth, but the core continental shelf region is set to experience declining production. We believe that a maturing North Sea with shrinking field sizes and higher depletion rates is less economically attractive to major E&P companies. The major E&Ps must deliver large production volume growth each year in order to overcome their own depletion rates and achieve growth targets. A capital and labor constrained industry combined with a quest for the "biggest bang for the buck" forces the largest E&Ps to go after the "elephants" in deepwater and other frontier regions. Therefore, we expect major E&Ps to de-emphasize the North Sea and independents to raise their profiles, especially in the U.K. To some extent, this is already happening. Measured by operated production, BP and Shell still dominate the U.K. sector, and Statoil and Norsk Hydro continue to dominate Norway. However, in the U.K., the independent E&Ps are now the most active drillers. The most recent licensing rounds in the U.K. and Norway have seen an influx of independent E&Ps. Independent E&Ps have also aggressively entered the U.K. market through acquisitions of producing properties. We believe this process has just begun. While major E&Ps are likely to hold on to core fields, infrastructure and promising development opportunities, it is reasonable to expect they will divest themselves of other properties. Independent E&Ps, which are no less aggressive in searching for production growth, will pursue development of new fields or redevelop existing fields. We believe the oil service industry and independent E&P companies will be long-term beneficiaries of this changing market. The North Sea provides a fertile market for independent E&Ps to grow reserves and production. As the independent E&P companies focus on developing the remaining potential of the North Sea, which will be increasingly comprised of smaller fields, the demand for oil services in the near and long-term should increase. [see: http://www.simmonsco-intl.com/research/docview.asp?viewnews=true&newstype=1&viewdoc=true&dv=true&doc=199 for remainder] From mark.jones at tiscali.co.uk Sun Nov 4 04:08:03 2001 From: mark.jones at tiscali.co.uk (Mark Jones) Date: Sat Jul 8 08:08:23 2006 Subject: [A-List] roots of Islamic anger Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.2.20011104110648.02b3fa60@pop.tiscali.co.uk> Peter Beaumont, foreign affairs editor, Nablus Sunday October 14, 2001 The Observer The teenagers were teasing us in bad English. 'Do you like bin Laden?' asked the one leaning over my chair. 'Do you respect him?' he pestered, giggling with his friends among the shabab - 'the boys'. In the barber's shop opposite the mosque in the Balata refugee camp in the West Bank city of Nablus, it was difficult to know the correct response. For slow-thinking journalists, however, there is a primer scrawled recently in Arabic on the mosque's walls. 'Blood for blood,' it warns, 'the West will fall.' Among a sizeable minority of the young men of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, bin Laden has become a folk hero. It is not just for his championing of the Palestinian cause, as he did on Arab television last week after the first day of the US bombing. It is not even for attacking America in the first place, which many, even among Hamas supporters, admit repelled and shocked them. Instead, by a convoluted logic, they admire him for becoming the target - with the Taliban - of American bombing. Strangely self-fulfilling, it is the fatalistic logic of those who feel themselves to be perpetually the victim. It was a contradiction summed up last week by a survey of Palestinian students at the West Bank's Bir Zeit University - 89 per cent believed the US was wrong to attack Afghanistan; 64 per cent said the attacks on the United States violated Islamic law. What is most alarming, however, is the sizeable minority - 26 per cent - who said they believed the suicide hijackings were consistent with the teachings of Islam. Last week in Gaza City those tensions erupted as the policemen of Yasser Arafat's Palestinian Authority fought with the young men of Hamas who had come out to demonstrate in sympathy with the people of Afghanistan - and bin Laden - in the worst outbreak of inter-Palestinian violence in years. What is certain is that Osama bin Laden is opening deep and dangerous fault lines throughout the societies of the Middle East. In a month since 11 September, his actions and the West's reaction to them have become, for a substantial and radicalised minority, a kind of shibboleth that marks you on either side of an ideological divide: Are you for - or against - America and the West? It is the question bin Laden wants the Islamic world to ask itself. Ironically, the outcome he envisages is one he shares with the right-wing US historian Samuel Huntington who - like bin Laden - believes that, by their inherent, contradictory cultural values, conflict between Islam and the West is inevitable. But is it? For behind the simplistic world views of the Huntingtons and bin Ladens - sitting at at their culturally excluding and exclusive poles - is a reality as complex as it is murky. The hostility towards the West, for all its specific grievances such as the bombings of Afghanistan and Iraq, and America's support for Israel, is as deeply embedded in a century of internal conflicts as in the history of the West's often clumsy interventions. They are frictions specifically born of the struggle of the Islamic world to reinvent itself amid competing ideas of democracy, nationalism, modernisation and religious revival. That struggle - for better and worse - inevitably has been played out in terms of a continuous process of evaluation of its progress against the achievements and failures of America and the West. But the question remains: What, precisely, fuels that rage against the West? I find Professor Abdu Sattar Kassem, a lecturer in political science at the University of Nablus, outside his apartment block in the city centre. It is Friday and he is anxious to pray. To keep the interview as short as possible, he hands me an article he has written on the question. 'As an Arab,' he writes, 'I understand why so many Arabs and Muslims hate the US and look at it as a power of evil.' A charming and clever man who studied in the United States, he says: 'The dumbest thing of all is that when I tried to talk to American colleagues and explain why they were disliked in the Middle East, they simply did not want to hear it or believe it. 'It is a form of cultural arrogance. They simply believe that they are best, and nothing can challenge that. 'What you have to understand is that many Arabs and Muslims want to build an Islamic civilisation in its own right. They blame the West in general - and America in particular - for subjugating that ambition by dividing the Arab world through the dictators that America supports. 'America has done this by fragmenting the Islamic world, dividing it under rulers it supports. 'America has perverted the attempts to democratise the Arab world. They are hypocrites. They preach freedom and democracy, but prevent Arabs from enjoying it and exploit their wealth. 'The final issue is the US support for Israel in tormenting the Palestinians. Let me tell you something, it will not be enough for America to force the Israelis to accept a Palestinian state. 'Muslims will not be satisfied with that. They must withdraw all support for Israel. Create a level playing field.' These are complaints you will hear repeated by many Muslim and Arab intellectuals across the region. But not all are happy simply to blame the West for all the failings of the Muslim world. Among them is Hazem Saghiyeh, a London-based columnist for the Arabic newspaper Al Hayat, who, while identifying the same causes of friction as Professor Sattar Kassem, puts a radically different gloss on the roots of Muslim dislike of the West. These, he says, have as much to do with the failure of the Islamic project itself in issues of governance and modernisation in the past century and a half as they do with American and Western interference. He does not deny there are good reasons for Muslims to dislike America and the West - not least the almost universally unifying feature of the widespread Islamic support for the Palestinian cause and the way in which the West has shored up obnoxious regimes across the Middle East. But he argues that equally important is a historic sense of inferiority in the Muslim world. It is a sense of inferiority, he believes, that has magnified the importance of America and the West in its history. 'Crucial is the sense of superiority to Europe enjoyed for almost a thousand years by Islam. For centuries after the defeat of the Crusaders it felt, not without some justification, that it was intellectually, morally, scientifically superior. 'Islam - and the Ottoman Empire in particular - was plunged into a deep crisis from which it has never really recovered following the Enlightenment and the Industrial Revolution. 'For a long time the Muslim world had become isolated and inward-looking and had had little contact with the outside world. The new epoch of European supremacy was a trauma and injury to its psyche.' Significantly - as other historians of the Middle East have pointed out - this crisis in the middle of the nineteenth century was accompanied by the emergence of deep divisions in the Islamic world itself over how best to reassert its values. It divided those who argued for reform, modernisation and an Islamic Enlightenment from those arguing for Islamic fundamentalism. The result, Saghiyeh believes, was a narcissistic culture of victimisation that survives until the present day. 'That narcissism and sense of humiliation,' he says, 'was accentuated by the disaster in 1948 when the Arab armies were defeated by the Israelis.' They were tensions exacerbated, says Saghiyeh, by the widespread failure of nationalist Arab models of governance in the postwar era that delivered autocratic, human rights-abusing regimes across the region. A side-effect of the poor record on human rights and freedom of speech has been the rise of a parallel narrative in Islamic consciousness. Robbed of the freedom to express themselves, many have turned to the 'conspiracy theory' as an alternative model to explain the problems of the world. 'The rise of the conspiracy theory in the Muslim world in the last few decades is extremely important. Because people feel they are not in control, because they feel they world is becoming stranger and stranger, they look for something behind it.' That 'something' is the myth of an almost omnipotent and controlling American power behind the scenes. At the heart of the hostility towards the West is a shared set of specific discontents across the Muslim world that have created a feeling of powerlessness and alienation in a substantial section of its populations. Specifically it is a discontent being driven by a myriad of social, demographic, political and economic problems. They are problems neatly encapsulated by experiences of the Gulf states such as Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and Kuwait. The rapid growth in population, which in some states has left a population where two-thirds are under the age of 30, has combined with general economic problems and issues of bad governance (in particular, rampant corruption) to create a massive gap of expectation in its young and sometimes well-educated populations. At its heart is a feeling of deracination and alienation among young Muslims across the region. 'There has been a process of suburbanisation,' says Saghiyeh. 'There has been a population explosion that has been accompanied by a shift from the countryside to the cities without gaining the benefits they expected of urban life: a comfortable life and the best jobs. Consequently these young people feel neither urban nor from the countryside.' It is a feeling of rootlessness that is mirrored in the failures of modernising projects in the Muslim world itself. 'These are also people who have lost their traditional ways of life but have not become modern, who have not benefited through all their education. It is a recipe for psychological breakdown and hysteria.' In the past two decades that gap of expectation has increasingly been filled by the politicisation of Islam and Islamic fundamentalism - which has emerged out of the failure of the Arab nationalist secular project that created a series of violently monolithic states, including Syria and Iraq. The result, says an Egyptian diplomat based in the Middle East, is that many people - frustrated with the failure of economics, politics or nationalism to give them the better lives they seek - have turned to Islam as a revolutionary solution. 'They look to men like bin Laden as a revolutionary solution - a magic formula when all else has failed. 'And remember that people like bin Laden carefully target the poor and illiterate, people they know are suffering, and present their vision as a kind of revolutionary Islam that will magically solve all their ills.' It is a revolutionary message first preached two decades ago by Ayatollah Khomeini. It was Khomeini who in the Eighties provided the vocabulary for hatred of America as the 'Great Satan' that has been recycled by others, such as bin Laden, who seek to reimpose the seventh-century utopian community of the Prophet Muhammad - the velayat-e faqih (clerical rule). Walking through the alleys of Nablus's refugee camps with Samir, my driver, during Friday prayers, it is hard to avoid the sense of the continuing politicisation of Islam or its appeal. It is equally hard to avoid the fact that for many of the younger generation it is a process framed explicitly in a hostility to the West. 'You know,' he says, 'when I was young it was only the old men who went to the mosque. Now it is almost everyone. Especially the young men.' We stop and chat to 30-year-old Tawfik Ibrahim. 'The Americans are happy with what has happened to the Palestinians,' he tells us politely. 'Now they are bombing the poor people of Afghanistan who have no planes or bombs. 'They can kill bin Laden. But there will be hundreds more bin Ladens. As long as women can have children...' Key strands in militant Islam THE SALAFIYYA A medieval school named from the Arabic words al-salaf al-salih, 'the venerable forefathers', referring to the Prophet Muhammad and his companions. It believed Islam had been corrupted and sought to restore its purity. Salafis are not necessarily militant. The Arabic term for the barbarism that existed before Islam. In the 1930s fears arose that Islam faced extinction. Radicals, including Rashid Rida and Maulana Maudoodi, developed the notion that modern Western culture was equivalent to jahiliyya. Egyptian writer and activist, probably the key influence on bin Laden, the Rousseau of militant Islam. Executed in the 1960s for inciting resistance to Egyptian regime. In Signposts on the Road (1964) he found jahiliyya everywhere, but particularly in the hedonism and sexual licence of the US, where he was radicalised as a student. IBN TAYMIYYA A medieval intellectual. Qutb found a way round the ancient prohibition against overthrowing a Muslim ruler - he declared them infidels. He reinterpreted the work of Ibn Taymiyya, equating his struggle against the Mongols in Syria with his own struggle against Arab rulers. This is thought to have sealed his death warrant in Egypt. SHEIKH OMAR ABDEL RAHMAN Convicted of conspiring to blow up the UN building and other New York landmarks. In his 1996 'Declaration of War against America', he wrote that the Saudi government, which expelled him and served as host to US troops during the Gulf War, was illegitimate and its leaders had ceased to be Muslims. From sherrynstan at igc.org Sun Nov 4 10:12:03 2001 From: sherrynstan at igc.org (sherrynstan@igc.org) Date: Sat Jul 8 08:08:23 2006 Subject: [A-List] comment and article Message-ID: While I am fascinated and energized by the research and analysis of the world's bourgeoisies, and keenly interested in what all this means, I begin to feel uncomfortable with all this dueling erudition, which is possibly because as a non-academic I can't share in it. But it seems to me that this preoccupation with the machinations of the world's ruling classes is ignoring what is developing among the other classes--and while I share Mark's frustration with what seems frozen consciousness in the US, stating it that way doesn't accurately represent what is going on here, where support for the war is a mile wide and an inch deep, and people are starting to ask a lot of embarrassing questions. I'm certainly not prepared to cede anything to determinism, even if it is based on some fairly sound prognostic indicators. Our working class is very diverse and stratified within itself, and a one-sized assessment of conscoiusness or militancy simply doesn't fit all. Our malaise on the ! ! left is due largely to the fact that we haven't had a good old-fashioned mass movement to get its roots into for quite some time, but that is changing. I'd like to hear more about what people see from the point of view of workers, since that's from where the hirsute one shifted the world view. And Tom, by 2035, I'll be 84. I'll have to be nice to you, because you may be the only one in our cell who is there to change my diaper and listen to my embellished lies of times past. Stan I enclose this from WSWS: WSWS : News & Analysis : Europe : Russia & the CIS The struggle for influence and oil in the Caucasus Renewed fighting in Abkhazia By Patrick Richter and Peter Schwarz 2 November 2001 Use this version to print | Send this link by email | Email the author While public attention is concentrated on America's war against Afghanistan, a conflict in another part of Central Asia that has gone largely unnoticed has flared up again. Since the beginning of October, violent clashes have been taking place in Abkhazia between guerrilla groups and government units, which threatens to develop into a conflict between Russia and Georgia. According to international law, Abkhazia, which stretches from the summits of the Caucasus to the banks of the Black Sea, belongs to Georgia, and is situated in its northwest. It has been de facto independent since 1992-93, when 10,000 died in a bloody civil war and over a quarter of a million Georgians were driven out. The government of Abkhazia has even requested that the rebel province be admitted into the Russian federation, while the Georgian government in Tblisi insists that it remains a part of Georgia, and at the most wants to negotiate an extended autonomy. Abkhazia is presently being protected by Russian troops, which supported the separatists in the civil war, and since then have functioned as a "peacekeeping force" in Abkhazia. Since 1993, the ceasefire has also been supervised by a UN mission (UNOMIG) consisting of 23 countries, including the USA, Russia and Germany. In 1999, agreement was reached at the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe summit in Istanbul to vacate the Russian military base at Gudauta in Abkhazia, but this has still not been implemented by Moscow. High-ranking military representatives said this would take at least 15 years. After the conflict had been smouldering for many years, it flared up again in August this year in a border dispute between Abkhazia and Georgia over the Kodori Gorge. According to Russian and Abkhazi sources, several hundred Chechen and Georgian guerrillas led by Chechen field commander Ruslan Gelayev penetrated the gorge from the Georgian side, carrying out assaults on Abkhazi villages and positions. After a temporary break in the fighting in September, hostilities flared up again and reached a high point in the battle to take the village of Georgyevskoye on October 4, which Abkhazi units recaptured the same day, with at least 14 killed. Four days later, on October 8, a UN helicopter was shot down during a regular monitoring flight. Nine people died-five UN observers, a local translator and the three-strong Ukrainian crew. On the following day, combat aircraft bombed villages in northern Abkhazia. Moscow at first denied this had involved Russian planes, and claimed later a Russian plane flying a sortie in Chechnya (500 kilometres away!) had gone astray. On October 17, Russian combat aircraft are again said to have penetrated into Georgian territory. In the meantime, both Russia and Georgia have moved thousands of soldiers to the common border, the worst crisis in relations between the two countries since 1993. Conflicting explanations So far, it is unclear who is responsible for this renewed flare-up in the fighting in Abkhazia and for the shooting down of the UN helicopter. In the hail of mutual recriminations even those familiar with the situation are unable to clearly ascertain what is truth and what is propaganda. For a long time, Russia has accused Georgia of offering a refuge to Chechen rebels in the Pankissi Gorge, which borders directly onto Chechnya. From here, by arrangement with the Georgian government, Gelayev's fighters set out to assist in reconquering Abkhazia and to open up a second front against Russia. The newspaper Rossyskaya Gazeta claimed on October 12, referring to captured Chechen fighters, that the attack on the Kodori Gorge had been personally agreed by Gelayev and Georgian President Eduard Shevardnadze. Reliable evidence for such claims has not been forthcoming, however. The Georgian government denies any responsibility and denies that Gelayev was ever in Georgia. According to Georgia, the recent disputes are a result of Russian provocation, with the goal of discrediting the Georgian government by branding it as supporting terrorism. The Georgian army is not known to possess the portable surface-to-air rockets, with which the UN helicopter was shot down. According to the third and most likely explanation, Chechen and Georgian partisans in fact instigated the fighting, and these were not supported by President Shevardnadze but by Georgian government circles who reject Shevardnadze's pro-Western course. In this respect, Interior Secretary Kakha Targamadze was mentioned, who is regarded as "Moscow's man" in Tblisi and a possible successor to Shevardnadze. Targamadze's participation would explain how Chechen fighters were able to travel 400 kilometres across Georgia to the Abkhazi border without being noticed or obstructed. This explanation is also supported by the fact that Shevardnadze was absent when the fighting broke out, as he was making a state visit to the USA. It is also conceivable that the Russian military, independently or in association with pro-Russian forces inside Georgia, were acting behind the back of President Vladimir Putin. Putin's recent rapprochement with the USA has met widespread rejection in Russian military and secret service circles. Above all the recent decision to shut the Russian Lourdes listening station in Cuba and the Cam Ranh naval base in Vietnam, as well as the agreement to allow the US to use former Russian military facilities in Uzbekistan, has resulted in unusually open criticism. Just a few days before it became a reality, Defence Secretary Sergei Ivanov had categorically excluded the stationing of American troops in Uzbekistan. Mikhail Delyagin, director of the Moscow Institute for Globalisation, spoke of "extreme stupidity, because we have given up our strategic influence". The Moscow newspaper Vremya Novostei, which is published in association with Newsweek, already sees Russia's entire political elite in unexpressed opposition to Putin, and recalls the last phase of Mikhail Gorbachev's presidency in 1990. A struggle for oil Even if it is not clear who is pulling which strings in Abkhazia, the recent disputes nevertheless show that behind the "alliance against terrorism" the struggle continues between the Great and regional powers for power and influence in Central Asia. Since the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the question has remained at the centre of foreign policy disputes: who will control this strategically important region rich in raw materials lying in the heart of the Eurasian landmass? A key question is how the rich oil and gas reserves of the region can be brought to the world market. After the independence of the former Soviet Central Asian Republics, Russia still enjoyed a monopoly in this regard, since all the existing pipelines traverse Russian territory. The Western powers, therefore, began to seek alternative export routes that would break the Russian monopoly and provide a direct route to the Caspian oil for the Western companies. The shortest route, running southward to the Persian Gulf, was blocked because of the American policy of sanctions against Iran. Under no circumstances was the Mullah's regime in Teheran to be able to control the flow of oil. In the southeast, first the civil war in Afghanistan and then the conflict with the Taliban regime meant the existing plans for a pipeline along this route collapsed. The present war against Afghanistan aims to change this situation by installing a pro-Western regime in Kabul. In the meantime, however, the only remaining route was to the west, and here Georgia offered itself as the ideal corridor, which connects oil production in Azerbaijan with the Black Sea. Great efforts were undertaken by Europe and America to loosen Georgia from Russian dependence and integrate it into the various Western alliances. Georgia and Azerbaijan were at the heart of the European Union's 1993 TRACECA project (Transport Corridor Europe-Caucasus-Asia). This was conceived of as rapidly and cost-effectively establishing traffic and communication routes from Europe to Asia-the "Silk Road of the 21st Century"-as an alternative to Russian routes. In 1996 this was followed by another consortium named INOGATE (Interstate Oil and Gas Towards Europe), to which the USA also belonged and which concentrated on the building of pipelines, railroad lines, roads, ports and airports between Azerbaijan and the Ukraine via Georgia. A highpoint of these efforts was a conference in Baku in September 1998, in which 33 countries and 12 international organisations took part, with 21 large oil companies from the USA alone participating. >From the mid 1990s, Georgia, Azerbaijan, the Ukraine, Moldavia and finally Uzbekistan established the GUUAM alliance (named after the initial letters of these countries), which sought closer ties with NATO. Another pro-NATO alliance exists between Turkey and Azerbaijan. Russia opposed this development, by stoking up ethnic conflicts in Georgia (Abkhazia and South Ossetia) and so strengthened the country's chronic political instability. President Shevardnadze even accused Moscow of being responsible for an assassination attempt made against him. Georgia, for its part, offered the Chechen separatists an area into which they could retreat from the Russian troops. A pipeline runs through the disputed territory of Chechnya, which connects the Azerbaijani capital Baku with the Russian Black Sea port Novorossisk, and which until 1999 was the only connection between the Caspian and Black Sea. In the meantime, it has almost completely dried up. In spring 1999, Western efforts showed their first success. An oil pipeline leading from Baku to the Georgian Black Sea port of Supsa began operations. It had been built by a consortium led by the British-American company BP Amoco. For the first time since the days of the oil pioneers Rothschild and Nobel, oil again flowed from Baku to the West bypassing Russia. However, at just five million tons per year, the new pipeline's capacity is small. A pipeline ten times more efficient, through Turkey to the Mediterranean port of Ceyhan, is still in the planning phase and could only be finished in 2006 at the earliest. For political reasons, the US government has strongly advocated the Baku-Ceyhan pipeline for years. However, the oil companies always regarded it with scepticism because of its great length (1,730 kilometres) and high cost ($2.9 billion). It would only prove profitable if, beside Azerbaijani oil, it were also used to carry oil from Kazakhstan, which is presently transported by ship or by a further pipeline via the Caspian Sea. On October 1, the opening of a pipeline linking Tengiz, the most important oil field in Kazakhstan, with Russia's Black Sea port at Novorossisk, delivered these plans a grievous blow. Built by the Caspian Pipeline Consortium (CPC), the new facility carries oil exclusively across Russian territory and has a yearly capacity of 28 million tons, which can be increased to 67 million. Although CPC also involved prominent foreign companies, in particular America's Chevron, nevertheless the start-up of the Tengiz-Novorossisk pipeline means that the plans to create an efficient western corridor independent of Russia have failed, for the time being. It is in this context that the renewed fighting in Abkhazia must be seen, which has so far predominantly benefited Russia. On the one hand, it supplies a pretext for the Kremlin to put pressure on Georgia militarily. After the crash of the UN helicopter, Defence Secretary Ivanov said it was now absolutely clear that the Georgian leadership was unable to control the situation in its territory or was manipulating terrorists for its own ends-a scarcely veiled threat that Russia might seek to impose order in Georgia and secure it against the "terrorists". On the other hand, the instability in Georgia is undermining the plans for the Baku-Ceyhan pipeline. This failure would leave Russia controlling the export routes from the Caspian and thus an important lever to influence geopolitical developments in the region. Russia's participation in the American "alliance against terrorism" does not mean that the Russian government has stopped defending its own strategic interests, which in the long run are incompatible with those of America's. The same applies also to China, the European powers and all the other members of the alliance. Such alliances between imperialist powers, "no matter what form they may assume, whether of one imperialist coalition against another, or of a general alliance embracing all the imperialist powers, are inevitably nothing more than a 'truce' in periods between wars. Peaceful alliances prepare the ground for wars, and in their turn grow out of wars." (Emphasis in the original) These words were written 85 years ago by no less a figure than Lenin, who composed one of the most astute studies of imperialism. They retain their full validity today. From Michael.Keaney at mbs.fi Mon Nov 5 00:40:04 2001 From: Michael.Keaney at mbs.fi (Keaney Michael) Date: Sat Jul 8 08:08:24 2006 Subject: [A-List] Britain/US split? Message-ID: Subject: Re: [A-List] Britain/US split? Probably I am missing something here, but what does this tell us about the US/Britain split? Mark At 02/11/2001 13:05, you wrote: >Peter Mandelson: My verdict on Syria's young leader: a > decent man doing a difficult job > > 'It was the most relaxed and honest exchange I am ever > likely to have with a foreign head of state' > > The Independent, 01 November 2001 ===== That it was Peter Mandelson, of all people, who "just happened" to be in Syria and "just happened" to be invited by Assad is interesting, to say the least. While the visit was made during his short-lived stint as Northern Ireland secretary, we know enough of Mandelson's history and subsequent trajectory to suggest that this was a fishing expedition on behalf of the New Labour clique that dominates the British state and is presently conducting a quiet takeover of the European Union apparatus. The British policy towards Israel/Palestine is interesting for its ambiguity and, in recent times, consistent ability to provoke sharp responses from Israel. One need think only of successive visits by British Foreign Office ministers to Israel which have inspired the wrath of the hosts. This goes back to John Major's administration, when David Mellor visited a Palestinian village and couldn't believe what he saw. Characteristically undiplomatic, he couldn't help but tell his hosts what he thought of their custodianship of the indigenous population. This began the current frosty relations between Britain and Israel, which, in large part, stem from the manner in which Britain, the former colonial power, was ejected from that region. Between losing out to the Stern gang and an ascendant US imperialism (exercised via the UN), "Israel" was very much a cause of resentment within the Foreign Office. Ernest Bevin believed Israel to be the creation of communists, and was happy to more or less replicate Nazi Germany's propaganda equating communism with Zionism. This fed into the conservative establishment's latent anti-semitism and its visceral anti-communism. Many within the intelligence and military establishments fought covertly to subvert the creation of Israel and this meant they were fighting with the Arabs. The creation of Jordan is a case in point. How strongly these historical ties linger today is moot, but it is clear that, from a dispassionate perspective, imperialists have nothing to gain from the irrational and provocative manoeuvres characteristic of post-Rabin Israel. For all his imagery as the great peacemaker, Peres is as much a Jerusalem fundamentalist as Sharon, hence their supposedly paradoxical ability to work together. Below is a recent article from the New York Review of Books which casts some interesting light upon the politics of Jerusalem and the dynamics driving the current repression: The New York Review of Books October 18, 2001 The Deadlocked City By Amos Elon Divided Jerusalem: The Struggle for the Holy City by Bernard Wasserstein Yale University Press, 412 pp., $29.95 1. Ariel Sharon knew what he was doing on September 28, 2000. In hot pursuit of the Israeli premiership, he marched onto Jerusalem's most contentious piece of real estate, the magnificent plateau, paved with pink and gray polished stone, which Jews call the Temple Mount and Muslims Haram al-Sharif (Noble Sanctuary). Other than during the Friday prayers, the site often seems nearly empty. On this particular day, Sharon arrived guarded by almost a thousand armed policemen and soldiers. He later claimed that his sole purpose had been to test "the freedom of access and of worship" on the Mount. His real motive was to win over the support of the extreme right and thus foil Benjamin Netanyahu's return to political power. He would attain his aim, though, only with some support from Yasser Arafat. At this time, Arafat also needed to improve his image as a hard-liner. Palestinians had been increasingly dissatisfied with him. They were demoralized by the abstractions of a "peace process" that never brought them any benefits but only increased their daily sufferings and humiliations. Israel, under Ehud Barak, continued to plant more settlers in the occupied West Bank and Jerusalem than it had under Benjamin Netanyahu. It was as though during the recent peace talks in Northern Ireland the British government had continued to ship more Protestants from Scotland to Northern Ireland and settled them on land expropriated from Catholics in Londonderry. To protest Sharon's provocation and improve his own declining image, Arafat either launched a bloody Palestinian uprising or did nothing to prevent it: the worst outburst of violence by Palestinians in a hundred-year conflict that is now more intractable than ever before. Ehud Barak, the then prime minister, also thought he knew what he was doing in permitting Sharon's expedition to this most sensitive Muslim shrine. Only a few days earlier, Arafat had been Barak's guest at a small dinner at Barak's private house. (In retrospect the setting seems hard to believe.) On this occasion, Arafat made a last-minute appeal to Barak to block Sharon's visit, just as similar political demonstrations on the Mount had been prohibited before. Barak turned him down. He, too, was badly slipping in the polls. His coalition had broken apart. He wanted Sharon to replace Netanyahu as the Likud candidate. Polls indicated that he had an outside chance to beat Sharon but not Netanyahu. Barak is a highly intelligent but politically maladroit former general whose hobby is taking complicated watches apart and putting them together again; he is both the most decorated soldier in the Israeli army and an accomplished pianist. He should have known that on Jerusalem's Haram al-Sharif, the wars of religion continue under a different name. In Jerusalem, hatred has often been another form of prayer and never more so than when the knives are pulled and the bombs are thrown. The religious hatred called odium theologicum has long been an instrument for gaining power and property, whether in local politics or in real estate speculation. Myths of divine promise alternate with myths of Blood and Soil. "History" and "religion" are relentlessly and superstitiously evoked and nowhere more so than on the Haram, or Temple Mount, where Sharon staged his political coup. Peace-making was never easy before and is now going to be infinitely more difficult. With Pavlovian regularity, unspeakable outrages against civilians now lead to murderous punitive raids that only provoke worse outrages. Even if the recent American-sponsored cease-fire should last, the end is nowhere in sight. So many futile "cease-fires" have preceded it. Is Arafat able to restrain the tiger he's been riding for almost a year? Can Sharon really be counted on to accommodate Arafat, whom he has been calling "our bin Laden"? There have been hundreds of dead so far and thousands of wounded, most of them Palestinians. 2. The tenth-century Arab geographer Muqaddasi-the name implies that he was a native of Jerusalem-wrote that the city was "a golden basin filled with scorpions." The holy places are mostly inside the walled Old City, within a stone's throw from one another. In some cases, they form part of the same architectural complex. For Orthodox Jews, the holiness of Jerusalem, however, extends far beyond the ancient walled city. According to Orthodox doctrine, everything seen from a high tower forms part of the sacred territory. After 1948, all synagogues that fell under Jordanian rule were destroyed. Nevertheless, not religious but political considerations were responsible for the new municipal borders of Jerusalem after the annexation of the former Jordanian sector following the 1967 war. Those borders now surround ninety-four square miles, much of it of former Jordanian land.[1] The new borders were intended, as Bernard Wasserstein shows in his excellent book, to include as many Israelis and as few Palestinians as possible. And yet, since the Palestinian population grows much faster, it has long been increasingly doubtful whether the Israeli majority can be maintained, even if, as is likely, the municipal area is further enlarged to include the new Israeli satellite towns built after 1967 on Palestinian land. In view of this likelihood, there has always been a certain crackpot quality to the nationalist rhetoric in Israel on the subject of Jerusalem. When the current mayor, Ehud Olmert, a member of the Likud, was recently asked by a reporter why municipal services in the Arab part of Jerusalem were so bad, he replied angrily that there was no Arab Jerusalem. There was only a "Jewish Jerusalem." Sharon calls Jerusalem "Israel's Capital, united for all eternity." The late prime minister Menachem Begin, who, after dramatically resigning in the wake of the disastrous Lebanese war, spent his last years alone in a shuttered room suffering deep depression, was one of the first to use this slogan. He did so in an ecstatic, ringing voice as though intoning an incantation. In the early 1980s, to avoid being outflanked on the Jerusalem issue by even more extreme nationalists, Begin decided to support a second annexation law-which redundantly declared that all of Jerusalem was indeed annexed to Israel-and put it through the Knesset. The Labor Party spokesmen said that the bill was unnecessary and even warned that it might cause damage; but then the Labor members of the Knesset voted for it. Yitzhak Rabin stayed away from the vote and argued with Shimon Peres over Labor's support for the law. To this day, Peres is a hawk on Jerusalem. The only result of the second annexation law was that the few foreign embassies located in West Jerusalem moved to Tel Aviv in protest. The UN Security Council passed a resolution condemning Israel for its annexation-fourteen votes to zero. The United States abstained. I remember asking Begin at the time whether, in his view, "eternity" could be legislated. "In this case it can and must be," he snapped back. We were sitting at a window table in the Knesset dining room. Begin pointed down the hill toward the Jerusalem Museum. "For proof that we are right you must go there. The remnants of our ancient glory are on view there. We are reviving it in our own days." I asked him if he agreed with the conventional wisdom that held that Jerusalem must be left to the end of the negotiations or there would never be an Arab-Israeli settlement. Begin looked up and said sharply: "Jerusalem will never be a subject for negotiation!" 3. A rational solution to the problems posed by two irreconcilable nationalisms in Jerusalem would have been to internationalize the entire city. This, in fact, was recommended by the original UN partition resolution of 1947. Israel accepted it; all the Arab countries did not. The Arab nations launched a war against the new state in 1947 and after the Jews defeated them, the new state of Israel changed its mind about Jerusalem, favoring a secret agreement with Jordan to divide the city between them. Golda Meir and King Abdallah agreed about this even before the guns fell silent. Neither gave a thought to the Palestinians. Jordan promised Israelis free access to the Wailing Wall but did not keep its word. Minefields and high walls topped by barbed wire divided the Israeli and Jordanian parts of Jerusalem. In theory, internationalization remains an attractive solution if only because it seems so reasonable. Neither Israel nor the Palestinians are ever likely to agree to it. They would not even agree to the internationalization of the Old City, where most of the holy places are. By now, generations of Palestinians and Israelis have been forcefully and dogmatically instructed by their political and religious leaders that the Old City is exclusively theirs. The early Zionists were wiser than their children and grandchildren. Like most European nationalists of the liberal school they were opposed to religious authority. Theodor Herzl, the founder of modern Zionism, never bothered to have his only son circumcised. He advocated the internationalization of Jerusalem. For the capital of his proposed secular Judenstaat (a "state for Jews" as distinct from what later came to be called a Jewish state) he preferred Haifa, overlooking the Mediterranean sea. Jerusalem, he felt, was redolent with fanaticism and superstition, the musty deposit of "two thousand years of inhumanity and intolerance.... The amiable dreamer of Nazareth has only contributed to increasing the hatred." Chaim Weizmann, Israel's first president, shared Herzl's feelings. An eminently rational man, Weizmann disliked Jerusalem. He was revolted by rabbis imposing themselves on politics and by politicians playing with religious fires. When the first Palestine partition plan was mooted in 1937, he suggested that only some of the modern parts of Jerusalem, inhabited mostly by Jews, be included in the proposed Jewish state. As for the Old City, "I would not take [it even] as a gift." Too many "complications and difficulties" were associated with it. Even as he wrote these words in a letter-preserved in the Weizmann Archives-brown-shirted members of Betar, a right-wing paramilitary Jewish youth movement, were clashing with Arab fundamentalists in Jerusalem not far from the Wailing Wall. They were fostering lethal Arab fears -at the time still based only on pure myth-that the Zionists were planning to tear down the mosques on the Haram and rebuild the Jewish Temple there. Freud referred to these clashes in a letter to Einstein. He was unable to muster sympathy, he wrote, "for the misguided piety that makes a national religion out of a piece of the wall of Herod, and so challenges the feelings of the local natives." The early Betar extremists (forerunners of Begin's Likud) were decried at the time as fascists by most Palestinian Jews. As far as we know, no one, not even Betar, contemplated at this time the possibility that the Jewish state they were fighting for would one day claim sovereign rights over the Haram, a site which for the past fourteen centuries had been the third-holiest place in Islam. The idea of rebuilding the Temple on its ancient site lay dormant until the 1967 war. It suddenly surfaced after the Israeli occupation of East Jerusalem. Israeli paratroopers hoisted the national flag over the sacred rock- now enclosed in a great mosque-on which many layers of meaning had accumulated from the days of Abraham to Mohammed, who is said to have ascended to heaven from it. Then Defense Minister Moshe Dayan quickly spotted the flag and ordered that it be removed. He ordered the troops to evacuate the sacred enclosure and hand it back to its Muslim attendants. That same day, the chief rabbi of the Israeli army, Shlomo Goren, an officer with the rank of major general, gave a first inkling of the difficulties of enforcing Dayan's wise order in the future. Much like Sharon thirty-three years later, Goren strode onto the Haram accompanied by singing acolytes and blowing a ritual shofar. He was reprimanded. The Arabs were then too cowed to do anything. According to another major general, Uzi Narkiss, the officer commanding the Israeli troops, the following conversation, which is quoted by Wasserstein, took place that day between him and Goren: Goren: Uzi, this is the time to put a hundred kilograms of explosives under the Mosque of Omar-and that's it, we'll get rid of it once and for all. Narkiss: Rabbi, stop it! Goren: You'll enter the history books by virtue of this deed. Narkiss: I have already recorded my name in the pages of the history of Jerusalem. Dr. Zerah Warhaftig, the Israeli minister of religious affairs, whom I interviewed two weeks later, told me that legally speaking the Temple Mount had been Jewish property since the days of King David, who had "paid the full price for it (fifty silver shekels) to Araunah the Jebusite." But he was a patient man, he added with a smile, ready to hold off from actually taking possession until the coming of the Messiah. We are fortunate, the minister told me, that the Talmud forbids Jews to enter the Temple Mount since their ritual uncleanliness can be overcome only with the ashes of a red cow, a rare species, now extinct. This saved Israel from unnecessary troubles with the Arabs. Others had less wisdom than this old-fashioned, Orthodox, but dovish politician, who was known for his moderation. Scuffles between the Muslim guards and both secular and religious Israelis started soon after. In August 1967, on the day commemorating the destruction of the Temple by the Romans in the year 70, Major General Goren reentered the Mount with a Torah scroll, an ark, and a pulpit. He set up a provisional synagogue between the Dome and the mosque of al-Aqsa and held a prayer service. The Israeli police failed to stop him, although some tried to do so. Other policemen were later said to have joined in the prayer service. Not long after, Major General Goren resigned from the army and was appointed chief rabbi of Israel. In Israel, where Orthodox Judaism is the state religion, this is a government post. Goren immediately ordered the removal of signs placed by Dr. Warhaftig at the entrance to the Temple Mount warning Jews that Talmudic law forbade them to enter the precinct. Goren's appointment endowed the High Rabbinate with a political militancy it had lacked until then.[2] As chief rabbi, Goren contested Warhaftig's view that the Temple Mount was out of bounds for Orthodox Jews, arguing that large parts of the Haram were not "as sacred" to the Muslims as they were to the Jews and should be made available for building a synagogue. In a particularly provocative statement he claimed the Muslims themselves attested to this by taking their shoes off only inside the two mosques but not on the surrounding platform. Starting in the late 1960s, clashes and fistfights between Palestinians and Israelis became more frequent around the Temple Mount. Young followers of Meir Kahane wearing T-shirts saying "The People of Israel Lives" painted Stars of David on the outside walls of mosques and yelled obscenities through the narrow lanes leading to the Haram. In the Old City an institute was set up devoted to rebuilding the Temple; it included a training center for priests who would eventually perform animal sacrifices on the Temple Mount. The venture was richly funded by American Christian fundamentalists, American Jewish donors, and secretly, on at least one occasion, by the Israeli government. The Arab municipality of the former Jordanian sector was dismantled and the Palestinian mayor was expelled to Jordan. His former counselors refused to join the Israeli municipal council under Mayor Teddy Kollek. Adjacent to the Wailing Wall, the residents of an entire Muslim quarter were expelled overnight without compensation. With Kollek's wholehearted approval, their houses were razed to make way for a vast plaza. One reporter, Herbert Pundik of the Hebrew daily Davar, told the mayor he thought it outrageous to turn the relatively intimate place where prayers had been offered for hundreds of years into "a vast, noisy Piazza del Popolo" where nationalist Israeli rallies were soon to be held and army recruits sworn in. Kollek disagreed. "It was the best thing we did," he said. In a vein characteristic of the new mood he added: "The old place had a galut [diaspora] character; it was a place for wailing. This made sense in the past. It isn't what we want to do in the future." Two years after the 1967 war, a deranged Australian fundamentalist Christian successfully set fire to al-Aqsa mosque, proclaiming that the removal of the mosque would bring about the millennium. The fire caused extensive damage and destroyed precious twelfth-century works of art. In the occupied West Bank, Gaza Strip, and East Jerusalem protesters took to the streets. In 1982, an equally deranged American, a "born-again" Jew named Alan Harry Goodman, wearing an Israeli uniform and armed with an M-16 automatic rifle, shot his way into the Dome of the Rock. He was a volunteer serving in the Israeli army, which had issued him his gun. His aim, he announced, was to "liberate" the Mount and become king of the Jews. Riots over this bloody deed spread to faraway Muslim countries in Asia and Africa and lasted intermittently for several weeks. Jewish fundamentalists eager to assert Israel's historical "sovereign rights" continued to seek access to the Temple Mount. The higher courts upheld government efforts to keep them out. They were not always successful. The cause of the transgressors was taken up by Likud and other secular politicians farther to the right. Protected by parliamentary immunity, they were able to organize political demonstrations on the Mount with impunity. Several underground conspiracies to force the issue by a spectacular act of destruction were successfully uncovered by the police. Some conspirators were caught red-handed, or on the very eve of an attempt to blow up the Temple Mount. Others merely tried to force their way in and lay the "cornerstone" of the new Temple. Some tried to renew the ancient practice of animal sacrifices. The courts gave the conspirators lenient prison sentences for hoarding explosives and related offenses. Some of them were prominent figures in the new settlements across the old demarcation line. The most flagrant received life sentences which, however, were quickly commuted. Prominent Likud politicians, including the former prime minister Yitzhak Shamir, successfully petitioned the president to commute sentences; the worst among them were given amnesty by President Chaim Herzog-a member of the Labor Party-and set free. 4. The annexation of the former Jordanian sector of Jerusalem was never recognized by the United States or any other country, though US protests softened over the years, grew rare, and successive US presidents went through the ritual of promising during their election campaigns to move the US embassy to Jerusalem. In Israel itself, after the victory in a war named for the "six days" of creation, popular support for the annexation was nearly unanimous. Politically active Israelis, notoriously divided on most other issues, never seemed more united than on this one. The annexation was widely described as a moral and historical right, Israel's "manifest destiny." The Arabs and the rest of the world, it was said, would just have to learn to live with it. Only two men in the governing national coalition cabinet dissented, Salman Aranne, a Labor minister of education, and the dovish National-Religious minister of interior, Moshe Shapiro. Both voted in the cabinet against ordering the army to occupy the Jordanian sector in response to the sporadic shelling. Both did so out of fear that occupation would cause endless conflict and difficulty in the future. But they kept their votes secret; they became publicly known only after they died. The annexation of East Jerusalem was one of the most popular acts of the Israeli government. In June 1967, Gershom Schocken, the editor-in-chief of the independent, liberal newspaper Ha'aretz, scolded the government for not formally annexing East Jerusalem sooner. (Today the same paper favors withdrawal from most of the West Bank and from much of East Jerusalem and advocates giving the Palestinians sovereignty over the Temple Mount.) In the summer of 1967 not only Schocken, who was both publisher and editor, but also most of his staff were overcome by the euphoria of a victory that was stunning, unexpected, and seemingly complete. I remember a meeting of the editorial board, perhaps a week after the cease-fire. Schocken loudly vented his impatience at the government's delays and hesitation. "Cowards! What on earth are they waiting for!" he said. Jordanian Jerusalem and its hinterland must be annexed immediately. Tomorrow could be too late. The most junior among the assembled senior editors ventured an opinion that the Palestinians could not be forced to become Israelis against their will. They had the same right of national self-determination as the Jews. Another staff member, an aging survivor of the Weimar Republic and a specialist on constitutional law, observed that the planned annexation ran counter to the laws of war and international conventions Israel had signed. Both were shouted down by their colleagues. Opinion was similar in all the other dailies except the Communist Kol Ha'am, a low-circulation paper with no public following except perhaps-for nationalistic rather than Marxist reasons-among Israel's Arab community. With very few exceptions, the literary establishment-led by the Nobel Prize winner in literature, S.Y. Agnon, and nearly all the best-known novelists, poets, and playwrights-lent their full support to the extremist manifesto, issued by the new Greater Israel Movement, calling for the immediate annexation not only of Arab Jerusalem but of all occupied territories, including the Sinai peninsula, the Golan Heights, and the entire West Bank. An exception was the young novelist Amos Oz. After walking through the narrow lanes of the Old City of Jerusalem he told an interviewer that he felt he was in a "foreign city" (Ir z'ara). Only three prominent members of the academic community spoke up at this stage against all annexations. The biophysicist Yeshayahu Leibowitz-an Orthodox Jew-ridiculed the cult of the Wailing Wall as pagan stone-worship. He believed that the planned annexations would turn Israel into a "police state." He was followed by the historians Yehoshua Arieli and Yehoshua Talmon. Talmon said that the experience of the French in Algeria should serve as a warning that Israelis might become as brutalized and corrupted as many of the pieds noirs, who tried to rule over an alien people against its will. Their fears soon came painfully true. In the years that followed, Jerusalem was "united" only in theory. Between Palestinians and Jews there was little if any social intercourse, no intermarriage, no economic cooperation to speak of, except, perhaps, in the underworld or between the Israeli security services and their paid collaborators and spies. That there were so many Palestinians informing on one another made some Israelis despise and belittle the Palestinians even more. The city continued to have two downtown areas, two business centers, two public transport systems, two electric grids, and two systems of social welfare. It was not a "mosaic," as Kollek often called it; mosaics have a certain harmony of design; here the division reflected only discrimination and a deepening chasm. There was an enormous disparity between the public funds allocated respectively to the Israeli and Palestinian quarters. Israel recognized pre-1948 Jewish property rights across the old demarcation line, in Jerusalem and elsewhere in the West Bank; but it refused to recognize the rights of Palestinians to property they owned on the Israeli side of the city before 1948. Despite repeated warnings that unfair treatment of Palestinian Jerusa-lemites in providing education, housing, sanitation, and other social ser-vices might lead to disaster, the discrimination against them continued, and continues to this day. Kollek often complained about this, but in distributing the taxes he collected in both parts of the city, he himself was as unfair to the Palestinians as the national government. Kollek was considered a "liberal," but his liberalism was often only a successful public relations ploy aimed at soliciting money abroad for his Jerusalem Foundation. The foundation sponsored some projects for Palestinians, but it was on the whole as discriminatory as the municipality. Palestinians were denied building permits; if they stayed abroad for more than a year or two, their resident permits were arbitrarily canceled. For political as well as for moral reasons Dryden's lines in Absalom and Achitophel, a parody of English radical Protestants under the Glorious Revolution, became more and more apt: But when the chosen people grew more strong, The rightful cause at length became the wrong. If it were not for Israel's overpowering military force, the city would have fallen apart. Despite this imbalance, the Palestinian neighborhoods were, in effect, governed by Arafat from Beirut or Tunis until 1994; and since the establishment of the Palestinian Authority in 1994 they have been governed by the authority's various security organs. Professor Wasserstein describes well the melancholy failure of the formidable Israeli state to realize in time the limits of its power. He lists the ups and the downs and the many "solutions" for joint government of the city, some of them absolute pipe dreams, that were concocted over the years by well-meaning think tanks and by academics peddling their cures in pleasant locations in Europe and America. A lot of good will on both sides went into these efforts. It was in vain. Among the solutions listed by Wasserstein were outlandish proposals to agree on "functional," as distinguished from political, sovereignty as well as "residual," "sliding," "shared," "vertical," or "horizontal" sovereignty, on one occasion even "sovereignty vested in God." Some of these solutions might be workable on the Dutch-Belgian border but scarcely among people at the savage climax of a hundred-year war. In Jerusalem alone, over 200,000 Israelis have been planted over the years across the old demarcation line on land confiscated from their Palestinian owners and their removal is considered inconceivable by most Israelis. (200,000 more were settled elsewhere in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.) Barak's unprecedented generosity at Camp David, when it came to Jerusalem, did not go beyond offering the Palestinians sovereignty over only a few isolated Palestinian enclaves cut off from the Palestinian state and from one another by the new Israeli neighborhoods near the Temple Mount. Barak offered the Palestinians sovereignty over their mosques on the Temple Mount but not over the ground on which they stood; and, allegedly with US support, he demanded a place on the Haram for Jewish prayer services. For the little he had offered, he was bitterly attacked by Sharon and was even criticized by Peres. Sharon himself owns an Arab house in the heart of the Muslim quarter of the Old City, though he rarely stays there. Throughout the annexed areas beyond the old demarcation line Jews and Palestinians now live in a patchwork of enclaves, and enclaves within enclaves, from which it is hard to imagine them being extricated in order to redivide the city. The oddest proposal I have seen is that the Palestinians should establish their capital in the nearby village of Abu-Dis, rename it, if they so wish, Jerusalem or al-Quds, and live happily ever after. The sad fact is that the city can no longer be partitioned effectively, while only a handful of idealists on both sides are ready to "share" it or be content with "custody" over religious sites in a city whose sovereignty would be left fuzzy. Wasserstein shows how, despite all restrictive measures against Palestinians from a demographic point of view, the great effort to "Israelize" the city, the "united" city, is failing. He writes clearly and dispassionately on a theme that has been more clich?-ridden than most and long monopolized by propagandists and hucksters. He rightly assumes that even if the Jordanians had not opened hostilities in June 1967, Israel would probably have been unable to resist the temptation to take East Jerusalem. His book is the most sober and in many ways the fairest description I know of official positions and popular sentiments on both sides between 1967 and 1999. 5. I found life in Jerusalem sad during those years. Violence was rampant. After each outrage, municipal workers in cars marked JERUSALEM CITY OF PEACE in three languages rushed to the scene with rags and brooms to wash the blood from the flagstones and make the place normal again for the tourists. There were also hopeful moments: in 1990 some 30,000 Israelis and Palestinians joined hands in a long human chain around the walls of the Old City, floating balloons and chanting WE WANT PEACE. But these occasions were rare and far apart; and even the human chain ended badly when the police tried to break up a group of Palestinian youths chanting, as the Israeli police put it, "nationalistic slogans." Those were still illegal at the time. Some thirty people were wounded and one woman lost an eye. In the Old City the prevailing tension was nearly always palpable. There was a feeling, sometimes, of being inside a claustrophobic fortress. It seemed ludicrous that this strife-ridden place should ever have become the proverbial city of peace. Much of the Old City was as the Crusaders and the Turks had left it. The Crusaders believed they would be here forever and built impressive walls. The Israelis have also erected enormous structures inside and outside the walls, but they were built more quickly and flimsily and they are considerably less beautiful. Some of the first major Israeli construction projects in East Jerusalem, the new high-rise buildings and the rebuilt university on Mount Scopus, were designed hastily under the influence of the then fashionable brutalist style in architecture. One often wondered at so many ugly buildings being built, so many eyesores and environmental disasters in the name of undying "love" for Jerusalem, Israel's eternal capital. The new university on Mount Scopus is especially disastrous. Tourists often mistake it for a fortress or military installation, with its narrow windows at odd angles like slits cut in the walls to accommodate machine guns. The new buildings have effectively killed campus life. The enormous, cavernous spaces are windy and often deserted. Few professors use their oddly shaped offices. Most rush back to West Jerusalem as soon as their courses are over. Although the university was built on a hill with one of the most magnificent urban views on earth, many of its windows look out on other walls. If Israel had not annexed East Jerusalem in 1967 and planted 200,000 settlers there, it could have had peace with Jordan in the early 1970s. It chose not to. Ever since, Israel has been unable to resolve the painful paradox of steadily increasing military power and steadily decreasing national security. The reasons for this continuing paradox are political: the attempt by one people to rule another against its wish. These reasons will not go away, although in the wake of the horrible terrorist outrages in New York and Washington, the US may be willing to intervene more firmly than in the past. The sadness of life in Jerusalem during those years was compounded by the scarcity of real human intercourse with the other side. Both sides were cursed by near-absolute self-righteousness. Both swore they were the victims-never the cause of any harm themselves. Among Israelis there was only very rarely a shadow of guilt over the fact that their astounding material, social, and international success had come at the price of rendering millions of Palestinians homeless. If it were not for European anti-Semitism, Israel would probably not have come into being. The Palestinians were not responsible for the collapse of civilization in Europe under the Nazis but in the end they were punished for it. Moral myopia in Israel was facilitated by the fact that Arab states maltreated the Palestinian refugees, exploiting them for their own purposes; and, except in Jordan, they were kept stateless down to the third generation. The power balance between Israelis and Palestinians was always so overwhelmingly in favor of the Israelis that any potential empathy among Palestinians for the people that vanquished them hardly ever emerged. If it did, it was eventually crushed when missiles from the latest-model jet planes, tanks, and helicopter gunships hit Palestinians, indiscriminately, in frequent, grossly excessive punitive raids for outrages committed by Palestinians in Israeli towns. Nor have I ever found anyone in the Palestinian camp who was seriously concerned by the fact that the PLO was, as far as I know, the only national liberation movement in history willing to extend its ruthlessness anywhere in the world, to innocent citizens of third countries and to participants in the Olympic games. Palestinians on one occasion blew up a Swiss passenger plane in mid-flight, and they hijacked or blew up other foreign planes, killing Austrians, Americans, Germans, Frenchmen, Turks, and Spaniards. Nor, more recently, have we heard Arafat or any Palestinian human rights group criticize the brainwashing of impressionable teenagers by "holy men" who convince them that they would be revered as martyrs and entertained by beautiful women in paradise if they only blew themselves up in a discoth?que full of other young people or in a crowded fast-food restaurant ten minutes from the Haram. The political deadlock runs parallel to the mutual lack of human empathy. For all its newly found dovishness, an editorial cartoon in the liberal Ha'aretz recently depicted the current Intifada as the infestation of a human body by a pack of vicious vermin. I saw only one letter to the editor protesting this cartoon. It came from one Klement Messerschmidt, a German resident in Jerusalem. He protested the utter dehumanization of the Palestinians implied in the drawing, which was reminiscent of Nazi cartoons. "Has no one on Ha'aretz felt uncomfortable with the use of this loaded metaphor?" The only reaction that seems appropriate now is despair. -September 19, 2001 Notes [1]Paris, on 105 square kilometers, accommodates approximately 2.1 million inhabitants, compared to some 600,000 currently in Jerusalem (68 percent Israelis, 32 percent Palestinians). [2] Last year, the current chief rabbi caused an international incident by thanking the Pope in his presence for recognizing greater Jerusalem, including the Palestinian parts, as Israel's national capital "united for all eternity," something the Pope had been very careful not to do. ====== So, where does this leave Mandelson? No chance that he just "happened" to be visiting Israel. It was a clandestine approach of the new President, educated and, until his father's death, resident in Britain. It was made at a time when the US was in disarray owing to the judicial coup enabling Bush to assume power, and when, of course, Clinton's efforts to become Nobel peace prize winner had failed utterly, prompting the Bush team to disengage (however temporarily) from the region. That it was Mandelson, now head of the EU think tank, The Policy Network, who made the approach suggests that it was very much in line with EU social democratic prerogatives (and Chirac, not Jospin, belongs here with D'Alema, Prodi, Schr?der and Persson). Whatever, it runs contrary to the much trumpeted notion of Syria as a state sponsor of terrorism, enthusiastically peddled by Israel and pretty much swallowed by a US intelligence establishment that resents the Syrian state's non-cooperativeness (i.e., independence). That Mandelson and co. should feel so free as to reveal this clandestine approach now, and in this manner, suggests that Blair's efforts at coalition-building are as much an effort to retain control of the international agenda rather than allow Bush, backed by Wolfowitz, Perle, et al., to plunge everyone into the darkest pit of international relations since the 1930s. Hence the Britain/US split. Michael Keaney From Michael.Keaney at mbs.fi Mon Nov 5 07:39:06 2001 From: Michael.Keaney at mbs.fi (Keaney Michael) Date: Sat Jul 8 08:08:24 2006 Subject: [A-List] Strategy of tension Message-ID: Weekend warriors not ready for action IAN BRUCE The Herald, 5 November 2001 LESS than half of Britain's 40,000 "weekend warriors" are fit for their role, and the Territorial Army could not be used even as a protection force for nuclear power or reprocessing plants, and other key installations. The admission, in answer to a parliamentary written question by Paul Keetch, the LibDem defence spokesman, reveals that 16,652 TA members would not qualify for call-up in emergency because they failed to pass their annual individual and unit training requirements. These include fitness, weapons handling and safety, and small unit tactics. There is also some doubt as to whether the Ministry of Defence could contact most of the 127,000 regular reservists on its books. These are men and women who have served in the full-time forces and are required by law to remain available for recall to the colours until their service would have amounted to 22 years, or they are regarded as being too old for active duty. A plan to mobilise 10,000 reservists for a ground invasion of Kosovo in 1999 was abandoned when the MoD discovered that it could not contact them. The MoD confirmed that a wider role for the TA, including defending installations considered at risk of attack, was one of the options being considered as part of the review of the armed forces ordered by Geoff Hoon, the defence secretary. He said: "I certainly think there may emerge from this review a greater role for a military presence within the UK ... I can see the TA may be involved in that." The overstretched manpower of a regular army with fewer than 100,000 trained troops and too many overseas commitments makes reliance on reservists and TA volunteers vital in a crisis. Full article at: http://www.theherald.co.uk/news/archive/5-11-19101-1-0-8.html Michael Keaney Mercuria Business School Martinlaaksontie 36 01620 Vantaa Finland michael.keaney@mbs.fi From Michael.Keaney at mbs.fi Mon Nov 5 07:54:03 2001 From: Michael.Keaney at mbs.fi (Keaney Michael) Date: Sat Jul 8 08:08:24 2006 Subject: [A-List] UK constitution Message-ID: The subject of Allen's book is one that has preoccupied Tony Benn for many years, and was dealt with in some detail in his books "Arguments for Socialism" and "Arguments for Democracy", published over 20 years ago. These were unique in that they were serious considerations by a *Labour Party* politician of a subject most were content to treat as given. Not only that, but Benn was of course concerned to highlight the use of Crown prerogative by the Prime Minister and the sham of democracy that this represents. On his mind at the time was the decision by James Callaghan to improve the UK's Polaris missile capability under the Chevaline programme, which was undertaken in secret without any Cabinet discussion whatsoever. Of course a feature of Blair's government is the complete lack of any Cabinet discussion on anything, so things have obviously moved on a bit since 1979. What I can't tell from this article is whether or not Allen is being satirical in his apparent lampooning of the constitutional pretences, or whether indeed he is advocating a full-scale "modernisation" of the state New Labour style and dropping all the facade that may be obstructing the "efficiency" of HMG. Given that this guy was a government whip, probably the latter. Labour MP's bill books an audience with President Blair Nicholas Watt, political correspondent Monday November 5, 2001 The Guardian Tony Blair enjoys powers which "would make Stalin blush", according to a Labour MP who is to introduce a parliamentary bill seeking to formalise the prime minister's role as Britain's "full blown executive president". Graham Allen, MP for Nottingham North, who was sacked as a government whip after the election, warns that the powers amassed by Downing Street in the past 50 years are so great that they are distorting the constitution. "Instead of a healthy balance we have an executive, the UK presidency, which stands like an 800lb gorilla alongside a wizened legislature and judiciary," Mr Allen writes in a book published this week: Time to be Honest about the UK Presidency. Its publication coincides with Mr Allen's priminister ship bill, which is to be introduced in the Commons later this month. If it became law - a highly unlikely, thanks to his former comrades in the whips' office - voters would be given the chance to elect their head of government directly. "The UK has in effect a presidency," he argues. "We should recognise it. We should welcome it. We should democratically control it." Downing Street officials, who insist publicly that they are observing the constitutional convention that the prime minister first among equals, will privately recognise many of Mr Allen's claims. Jonathan Powell, Mr Blair's chief of staff, reportedly said in private last year that he wanted to create a "Bonapartist" system in which Downing Street controlled every element of government. This runs against the constitutional convention that cabinet ministers are accountable to parliament for their departments. Mr Allen says that for 50 years successive prime ministers have ignored the conventions as they amassed more powers. "The blanket of powers of the UK presidency inadvertently suffocates initiative at every lower level," he says. "Modern government is full of bright capable people, many of whom have been deeply frustrated by the top-down culture which they feel they cannot change or influence." Calling on the prime minister to "come out" and admit he has become a president, Mr Allen outlines powers which outstrip those held by President Bush. "A whole panoply of so-called royal prerogative powers are reserved to the prime minister ... [which] includes the making of treaties, and the ability to go to war," he writes. "Of course, in true British style, all this power is concealed by acres of window dressing, privy councils, royal audiences, parliamentary rituals, the facades of ancient buildings and public school accents. "While we in the UK would rather chatter about the cut and colour of the camouflage, behind it the UK president has power that would make Stalin blush." As a first step to changing the system, Mr Allen recommends a novel way to liven up the "ritualised, partisan, perfunctory questioning" of ministers in parliament. "Why close our minds to an MP or an Andrew Marr figure using the currently empty chamber each morning with a roving mike getting MPs' first-hand evidence live on TV on key constituency problems of the day, or a semi-circular chamber, or guest witnesses addressing the House - anything to get the House to speak to and for the electors and their concerns," he writes. Full article: http://politics.guardian.co.uk/labour/story/0,9061,587787,00.html Michael Keaney Mercuria Business School Martinlaaksontie 36 01620 Vantaa Finland michael.keaney@mbs.fi From Michael.Keaney at mbs.fi Mon Nov 5 07:59:03 2001 From: Michael.Keaney at mbs.fi (Keaney Michael) Date: Sat Jul 8 08:08:24 2006 Subject: [A-List] Europe/US rivalry? Message-ID: Love the idea of Blair issuing a "summons" to other European leaders. Britain rules the waverers, once again. ===== Blair summons Europeans for 'council of war' By Ben Russell, Political Correspondent, and Marcus Tanner The Independent, 05 November 2001 Tony Blair summoned the leaders of six European nations to Downing Street last night for urgent talks on the next steps in the US-led campaign against terrorism. The Prime Minister held what amounted to a council of war with the leaders of France, Germany, Spain, Italy, Belgium and the Netherlands, fuelling speculation about an extension of the military campaign. The meeting came as the US Defence Secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, ruled out any pause in the air strikes during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. General Pervez Musharraf, Pakistan's military ruler, appealed yesterday for a pause in the air strikes during Ramadan, which begins on 17 November, warning of "a huge negative fall-out". But Mr Rumsfeld, in Pakistan as part of a whirlwind four-day tour of Afghanistan's neighbours, said four weeks of American bombing had undermined the Taliban to the point where they had virtually ceased to govern. In Washington, the Pentagon said more special forces had moved into Afghanistan. The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Richard Myers, said "a couple more teams" had been deployed in Afghanistan to help anti-Taliban forces. "We'll continue to resupply [the opposition] right through the winter. We think they have every chance of prevailing." In Afghanistan's northern Takhar province US jets and B-52 bombers roared over Northern Alliance encampments before dropping bombs on Taliban front lines. But the Taliban insisted they had recaptured territory lost earlier to the Northern Alliance. They said they had advanced 43 miles south of the strategic city of Mazar-i-Sharif, which the opposition is struggling to capture. In London, Mr Blair hosted a dinner for the French President, Jacques Chirac, and Prime Minister, Lionel Jospin, the German Chancellor, Gerhard Schr?der, the Italian Prime Minister, Silvio Berlusconi and the Spanish Prime Minister, Jose Maria Aznar. The importance of the meeting was underlined as the five leaders were joined at the last minute by Wim Kok, Prime Minister of the Netherlands, Guy Verhofstadt, the Prime Minister of Belgium, which currently holds the presidency of the EU, and Javier Solana, the European Union's foreign affairs representative. Downing Street said the meeting had been called to share experience and information after Mr Blair's tour of the Middle East and Chancellor Schr?der's mission to Russia for talks with President Vladimir Putin last week. Last night's meeting was described by a Number 10 spokesman as a "useful opportunity for the leaders to get an overview of the situation". Full article at: http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/politics/story.jsp?story=103208 Michael Keaney Mercuria Business School Martinlaaksontie 36 01620 Vantaa Finland michael.keaney@mbs.fi From Michael.Keaney at mbs.fi Mon Nov 5 08:07:03 2001 From: Michael.Keaney at mbs.fi (Keaney Michael) Date: Sat Jul 8 08:08:24 2006 Subject: [A-List] Public private parasitism Message-ID: Byers faces fresh crisis as air traffic firm heads for ?50m loss By Barrie Clement Transport Editor The Independent, 03 November 2001 The Government is coming under intense pressure to bail out the public-private partnership running the air traffic control system, which is understood to be heading for a ?50m loss instead of a previously predicted ?60m profit. The annual conference of air traffic controllers meeting in Stockport today and tomorrow will urge Stephen Byers, the Secretary of State for Transport, to rescue of National Air Traffic Services (Nats) just three months after it came under the control of the PPP. The ?110m reversal in the fortunes of the company comes as another embarrassment to Mr Byers on top of the financial d?b?cle at Railtrack, which has been placed into administration. Sources say that the steep downturn in predicted income at Nats can be attributed to over-optimistic calculations by seven of Britain's biggest airlines when they formulated plans to buy 46 per cent of shares in the service, as well as the slump in air travel after 11 September. The use of smaller aircraft since the terrorist attacks has hit Nats hard because the company is partly paid by tonnage. The air traffic controllers' union Prospect said yesterday that the new organisation, in which the state retains a 49 per cent stake, is already in "serious financial difficulties". Iain Findlay, national aviation officer at the union, pointed out that the Government took ?750m for the shares bought by airlines and had a responsibility to help. "As a major stakeholder and shareholder in Nats, the Government must look again at the financial structure to prevent a 'Railtrack of the Skies'. It should be taking the idea of partnership seriously," he said. The conference will call for a commitment from the Government to press ahead with the new control centre at Prestwick, Strathclyde. Construction has been delayed while Nats reviews its ?1bn investment plan because of the terrorist attacks. Mr Findlay said: "Controllers can not stand by and see a world-class service deteriorate. Just three months into privatisation we are suffering the first major cutback. Investment in vital infrastructure, such as the new air traffic control centre in Scotland, must be maintained according to the original timescale to ensure capacity and safety are not affected." A spokesman for Nats said the company was still working out the impact the decline in air travel would have on finances. Management had taken a number of steps to reduce costs, including the delay in the Prestwick centre and a 20 per cent reduction in support and management staff. A spokeswoman for the Department of Transport said the Government had received no request for financial assistance. "Any such request would be treated on its merits," she said, but the provision of state aid could fall foul of European Union law. Full article at: http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/transport/story.jsp?story=102918 Michael Keaney Mercuria Business School Martinlaaksontie 36 01620 Vantaa Finland michael.keaney@mbs.fi From Michael.Keaney at mbs.fi Mon Nov 5 08:10:03 2001 From: Michael.Keaney at mbs.fi (Keaney Michael) Date: Sat Jul 8 08:08:24 2006 Subject: [A-List] Public private parasitism: neocolonial section Message-ID: Britain accused over Ghana water project By Paul Peachey The Independent, 03 November 2001 The Christian Aid charity accused the British Government yesterday of using the lure of a ?10m aid package to open up Ghana's water industry to foreign investment. The money is to be released once bids have been received for two contracts to supply water to most of urban Ghana. The Anglo-Dutch firm Cascal is among four overseas firms expected to bid for the right to supply 74 towns and cities. Clare Short, the Secretary of State for International Development, said the charity's claim was "completely false". The aid was part of a "responsible and equitable" response to Ghana's water problems. Despite the need for huge investment in the water system, Christian Aid said feelings were running high against the public-private scheme and a day of protest was planned on 9 November in Ghana. The charity said the cost of drinking water had already doubled in preparation for foreign involvement in the West African country, where almost half of the population has no regular and safe supply. The British aid is part of a $500m (?350m) restructuring of the Ghanaian water industry, led by the World Bank. Christian Aid said the Ghanaian authorities had come under pressure to accept a scheme favoured by the World Bank, rather than what was best for the country - a claim dismissed by the World Bank as "an insult". Full article at: http://news.independent.co.uk/world/africa/story.jsp?story=102902 Michael Keaney Mercuria Business School Martinlaaksontie 36 01620 Vantaa Finland michael.keaney@mbs.fi From Michael.Keaney at mbs.fi Mon Nov 5 08:19:03 2001 From: Michael.Keaney at mbs.fi (Keaney Michael) Date: Sat Jul 8 08:08:24 2006 Subject: [A-List] Britain/US split Message-ID: Mark has already discussed how the Blair vision is both too little (to save the status quo) and too much (for Bush et al to stomach). Here is a distillation of that vision written by the FT's former Moscow bureau chief, the guy who applauded Yeltsin's use of tanks against the Duma in 1993, has since recanted a bit, and is now ploughing a furrow similar to that of the current Moscow bureau chief, Robert Cottrell, whose discussion of Peter Reddaway and Dmitri Glinski's book on Russia's shock therapy experience was an accomplished washing of hands in the manner of -- well, ok, it didn't really work, but what else could, realistically speaking, have been done? Unfortunately the New York Review does not seem to have that review on line. Whatever, here's Lloyd with a third way response to the global anticapitalists courtesy of Demos, another of New Labour's think tanks of choice, about which more later (hopefully). ===== The centre-left needs a global vision By John Lloyd Financial Times, Nov 05 2001 00:00:00 The left in the rich countries of the world has produced two political responses to global capitalism. One is the almost apologetic stance of centre-left political parties and governments. By far the more vivid and inspiring is the anti- globalisation movement. In little more than five years, the organisations of this movement have established themselves as uncompromising critics of "capitalist globalisation". They argue that it is a phenomenon from which only rich people in rich states gain. The anti-globalisation movement has developed in three waves. The first comprised organisations such as Medecins sans Frontie`res and Oxfam, inspired by religious, humanist or social democratic concern for the poor and war victims. The second, including groups such as Friends of the Earth and Greenpeace, emerged from a more radical movement to protect the planet from commercial and other despoliation. The third wave, including such groups as Globalise Resistance and Ya Basta, does not wish to complement or influence governments but to destroy them. These organisations have highlighted the misery and drudgery, the oppression, hopelessness and voicelessness of much of the world's population. They impart, especially to young people, a sense of dedication to the cause of others less fortunate than most of those in the western world. Yet they impose little in the way of a burden on supporters, who do not have to work among the poor, attend party or group meetings, or donate regular sums. They offer spontaneity and fun, wrapped in moral outrage. They have another advantage. They are burdened with no ideology, programme or example. Socialism and Marxism are among their inspirations - but stripped of their less appealing elements. More than 30 years after the event, they have appropriated and given meaning to the 1968 Parisian wall slogan: "Be practical: demand the impossible!". By demanding the impossible, they have created a tide of support. Social democrats have looked on these works and despaired. They cannot descend to the violence, mass pressure and anti-Americanism that have marked the urban protests of the past three years. They cannot be anti-capitalist: indeed, they require a healthy capitalism to achieve their reformist goals. All of the centre-left governments in power in Canada, France, Germany and the UK have accepted in differing ways that the market economy is the only economic system available. They feel - or at least their supporters feel - a little uneasy about that. Social democracy is a democratic movement at a time when democracy has been taken for granted and party memberships are in decline. In contrast, the anti-globalisation movement has a network, a sense of moral purpose and mobile young people accustomed to coping with foreign cities. One irony is that its militants are drawn from the most globalised generation yet seen. In power, centre-left governments inherit obligations and limitations not of their making. Their conversion to orthodox liberal economics limits their ambitions. They are anxious to prove that they can run prudent economies and efficient states. The idealism that was at their core becomes mired in the necessary compromises and evasions of office. These governments have also brought in measures to alleviate poverty, strengthen civil society, boost public spending and increase foreign aid budgets. But these are not the stuff of which youthful - or even ageing - ideals are now made. The political response of the centre left has thus been muted, defensive, even apologetic. It can no longer be so. The terrorist acts of September 11 remind us that terrorism is also globalised - and efficiently so. The challenge of the anti-globalisation movement to social democrats is that of a stimulus. They prompt the centre left to engage in global politics. Some of the leaders have now sketched in a partial response. Gerhard Schroder, chancellor of Germany, did so last month, all but completing the transformation of Germany into a power able to deploy force outside its borders to protect minorities and stabilise states. Tony Blair, Britain's prime minister, did so at the Labour party conference last month, when he called for a world where "justice and prosperity for the poor and dispossessed" are possible. These are idealistic aims. The difference is that social democrats are in power, which brings with it both the ability to further these aims and the inhibitions that could hamper them. But the aims are at least a start. The centre left now has to develop a global vision of reform for existing institutions and the creation of new ones. It has to create a global governance able to promote justice and prosperity more effectively. For social democrats, such a task presents both a return to past ideals and a reason for future existence. The writer is author of The Protest Ethic: how the anti- globalisation movement challenges social democracy, published today by Demos, Elizabeth House, 39 York Road, London SE1 7NQ Full article at: http://news.ft.com/ft/gx.cgi/ftc?pagename=View&c=Article&cid=FT32JZ97NTC &live=true&useoverridetemplate=FTD1OUN2DNC&tagid=FTDNE3BOBNC Michael Keaney Mercuria Business School Martinlaaksontie 36 01620 Vantaa Finland michael.keaney@mbs.fi From mark.jones at tiscali.co.uk Mon Nov 5 12:49:03 2001 From: mark.jones at tiscali.co.uk (Mark Jones) Date: Sat Jul 8 08:08:24 2006 Subject: [A-List] Europe/US rivalry? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.2.20011105193202.00a89720@pop.tiscali.co.uk> At 05/11/2001 14:56, you wrote: >Love the idea of Blair issuing a "summons" to other European leaders. >Britain rules the waverers, once again. > >===== I happened to notice Dutch prime minister Wim Kock (I think I have that right) emerge from the meeting. His relieved smile was plain to see. I conclude from this that actually there will be no war in Afghanistan, not one that anyone but Afghanis need to worry about anyway. If Blair had announced serious impending hostilities, the good burghers of Amsterdam would be gathering their belongings, not grinning inanely. This means that there will be no war. Just a little more of the ongoing random thud and blunder, then a big meeting somewhere. True there is a lot of media hoo-hah about Donald 'Hammer of the Afghans' Rumsfeld's visitations in Asia. Rumsfeld looks like a click-eyed, heel-dragging creature from a scary movie, the kind that always is right behind you no matter how fast you run. His death's head looks like the template for an SS hat badge. His attempt to talk up the war seems phoney. It's hard to guess what Our Leaders are up to, but they are seem so dumb that we probably just lack the imagination to comprehend them. I can't really believe that they plan to send half a million GI's to 'Stan and what's more to base their logistics in places like Dushanbe. I've been there. Even the hardened citizens of Dushanbe have logistical problems you wouldn't dream of. Like, I guess, the entire Taleban leadership, my fingers are crossed hoping that the Bushies really are this dumb, but they surely can't be. Can they? They aren't really going to fight a major war in 'Stan? Nah, can't be. Nemesis postponed, eh? Shame. I've grown to like the Talebanchiki. Mark From tomzbox at hotmail.com Mon Nov 5 15:11:05 2001 From: tomzbox at hotmail.com (Tom Warren) Date: Sat Jul 8 08:08:24 2006 Subject: [A-List] Europe/US rivalry? Message-ID: Writes Mark: >True there is a lot of media hoo-hah about Donald 'Hammer of the >Afghans' Rumsfeld's visitations in Asia. Rumsfeld looks like a click-eyed, >heel-dragging creature from a scary movie, the kind that always is right >behind you no matter how fast you run. His death's head looks like the >template for an SS hat badge. His attempt to talk up the war seems phoney. Mark, and list: My West Coast friends and I are having a small apoplectic stroke about the failure of US media to report a crucial incident ... Here is the source (I hope this link works) http://www.portal.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2001/11/03/wraid103.xml&sSheet=/news/2001/11/03/ixhome.html anyway, here's the rub: Every article that we've accessed or read on U.S. websites tell us that it was only the weather that hampered landing special forces. Yet, the UK's Telegraph is quoting Rumsfeld as saying "...the ground fire was simply too heavy..." Maybe we've missed something -and if you've seen this reported in the U.S., we'd like to know about it- but this is looking like more blatant propagandizing by our so-called 'free press'. I am under the impression that the Telegraph is a reliable source, but I am not THAT familiar with brit media. It's hard to know where to lob my next grenade without adequate forward observers .... TIA Tom _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp From tomzbox at hotmail.com Mon Nov 5 15:15:13 2001 From: tomzbox at hotmail.com (Tom Warren) Date: Sat Jul 8 08:08:24 2006 Subject: [A-List] War on Eco-Terrorism begins? Message-ID: Without comment: The following text appears at http://www.greenparty.org/bangor.txt: GREEN PARTY USA COORDINATOR DETAINED AT AIRPORT PREVENTED BY ARMED MILITARY FROM FLYING TO GREENS MEETING IN CHICAGO Armed government agents grabbed Nancy Oden, Green Party USA coordinating committee member, Thursday at Bangor International Airport in Bangor Maine, as she attempted to board an American Airlines flight to Chicago. "An official told me that my name had been flagged in the computer," a shaken Oden said. "I was targeted because the Green Party USA opposes the bombing of innocent civilians in Afghanistan." Oden, a long-time organic farmer and peace activist in northern Maine, was ordered away from the plane. Military personnel with automatic weapons surrounded Oden and instructed all airlines to deny her passage on ANY flight. "I was told that the airport was closed to me until further notice and that my ticket would not be refunded," Oden said. Oden is scheduled to speak in Chicago Friday night on a panel concerning pesticides as weapons of war. She had helped to coordinate the Green Party USA's antiwar efforts these past few months, and was to report on these to The Greens national committee. "Not only did they stop me at the airport but some mysterious party had called the hotel and cancelled my reservation," Oden said. The Greens National Committee -- the governing body of the Green Party USA -- is meeting in Chicago Nov. 2-4 to hammer out the details of national campaigns against bio-chemical warfare, the spraying of toxic pesticides, genetic engineering, and the Party's involvement in the burgeoning peace movement. "I am shocked that US military prevented one of our prominent Green Party members from attending the meeting in Chicago," said Elizabeth Fattah, a GPUSA representative from Pennsylvania who drove to Chicago. "I am outraged at the way the Bill of Rights is being trampled upon." Chicago Green activist Lionel Trepanier concluded, "The attack on the right of association of an opposition political party is chilling. The harassment of peace activists is reprehensible." For further information, please call 1-866-GREENS-2 (toll-free) _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp From Michael.Keaney at mbs.fi Tue Nov 6 02:19:03 2001 From: Michael.Keaney at mbs.fi (Keaney Michael) Date: Sat Jul 8 08:08:24 2006 Subject: [A-List] UK intelligence made simple Message-ID: For modern spies, the Great Game is over By Alan Judd Daily Telegraph, 29 October 2001 WE shall hear much about the role of intelligence in the current Afghan war, and in the wider "war against terrorism" to follow. But what is intelligence, what can we expect of it, what are its limits, is it prescriptive or descriptive, or both? Intelligence is information obtained covertly from people who do not wish you to have it. It is usually gathered by intercepted communications, by secret agents, by aerial or satellite reconnaissance or by direct visual reconnaissance. In Afghanistan, secret agent reporting would be the responsibility of the Secret Intelligence Service (SIS or MI6), interception that of GCHQ, and the rest that of the military, although there are nearly always overlaps. Visual reconnaissance is likely to be particularly important during the Afghan campaign, less important later. Intelligence is not more significant than overt information simply because it is covertly obtained. It should be assessed along with all other information on the target subject, covert and overt, and the assessors should ideally not be the people who produce it, since it is hard for them to be objective about their own product. In Britain, the mechanism for doing this is overseen by the Cabinet Office assessments staff and by the Joint Intelligence Committee (JIC), which tasks the intelligence agencies. Whitehall departments decide what intelligence they want and the JIC prioritises; if no one asks for intelligence on a particular subject, or if it is given low priority, the agencies don't waste time and money seeking it. Thus, some alleged intelligence failures, such as the Falklands, are part of wider policy failures. The agencies fail if Whitehall gives priority to a subject and they fail to produce on it. Even when accurate and complete, intelligence is not an automatic pass-card to everything. Circumstances may change, a terrorist cell may disobey its orders, a dictator change his mind overnight. Intelligence cannot, for example, tell you what is in Osama bin Laden's mind unless he truthfully communicates it to someone - and that assumes he knows himself. But, to take hypothetical examples, it can tell you that he depends on three individuals for his contact with the outside world, that his sole remaining source of funds is an international charity, that he has a medical condition for which he needs drugs, that he has re-established contact with his network in Greece and asked them to recruit a nuclear physicist. Predictive conclusions may be drawn from intelligence but individual reports are usually best presented as descriptive: "X assembled his forces on 23rd, and on the 24th told them he intended to attack on the 25th." Who said what to whom, where, when and who else was there are what policymakers most want to know. Intelligence may be important and true but useless. Learning that you are about to be attacked by overwhelming force might be of consuming interest, but if you can't do anything about it it is ultimately valueless. Or it may be true and timely but so unwelcome that intelligence customers can't bring themselves to accept it. This happened with early 1930s MI6 reports on German U-boat construction and with Churchill's intelligence-derived warnings to Stalin (along with those of Stalin's own agents) of Nazi invasion plans. Although all kinds of intelligence will contribute in Afghanistan and thereafter, agent reporting - sometimes called "humint" - is particularly important when you are attacking small groups. Typically, humint relies on agent penetration of the target. Either you recruit an existing member, which means you have first to identify, then get physical access to him, then persuade him to spy for you - and what would induce a highly motivated suicide bomber to do that? Or you have to recruit someone and insert him into the group, if you can find an agent with the very particular background, motivation and abilities to make him attractive to them while remaining loyal to you, daily risking torture and death on your behalf. Or you need staff with the right sort of background, skills and courage to go under "natural cover" - assuming a false identity and living as someone else - to get close to the group. Or you recruit someone who is not actually a member but a provider of facilities, such as money, accommodation, equipment or passports. In the days of European terrorist movements, one European service found its most effective agent was a babysitter - she knew times, dates, durations and sometimes approximate destinations. Even assuming you achieve this, you need secret and effective communications that work when your agent is supposedly incommunicado, usually the most vital time. With determination, luck and imagination, these formidable obstacles can be overcome. Osama bin Laden and his group are a hard target but not unique - the Thuggees in 19th-century India must have seemed equally impenetrable at first to those who eventually destroyed them. However, there are also cultural and legal hurdles. Terrorists are often involved in wider criminality (the IRA and Colombian drugs cartels, for example, or the Taliban and heroin). In order to penetrate them you have to deal with people who might be subject to arrest on British territory. They might tell you things you'd rather not know but it's no good withdrawing from the relationship simply because it makes you or your organisation complicit. This may require changes in law or procedure in this country; it certainly will in America, where the CIA and FBI were discouraged from recruiting terrorists under human rights regulations enacted under President Clinton. US intelligence officers could be sued for recruiting someone who subsequently did something "inappropriate" or whose behaviour involved "human rights violations". The question of assassinations was recently highlighted by President Bush's apparent revoking of the ban on US-inspired assassination. MI6 does not commit assassination in peacetime. But what about wartime - and is this war or not? The present unsatisfactory position seems to be that it would be all right for our soldiers or cruise missiles to kill bin Laden by accident or in self-defence, but probably not by shooting him at his campfire. It would probably also be against the law for an MI6 officer overseas to conspire with his agent to assassinate bin Laden. If such a plot came to light, could bin Laden - in view of our incorporation of human rights law - have a case against the British Government? This issue needs clearer moral thought and political leadership than as yet have been given it. A more predictable change is that the intelligence agencies will expand; GCHQ will need more linguists and there have recently been informed press reports that MI6 is seeking more staff. It is apparently looking for Civil Service fast-stream equivalents - able, honest, imaginative men and women in their twenties or early thirties. But beware: these campaigns will be methodical rather than romantic affairs, and for only very few will there be echoes of the 19th-century Great Game. The man who coined that phrase, Captain Arthur Connolly, was beheaded in Bokhara on a rescue mission after grisly confinement. For the sake of those we want to help us, we must ensure that our secrets stay secret. Alan Judd is author of The Quest for C, the biography of the founder of MI6 Full article at http://www.dailytelegraph.co.uk/01/10/29/do01.html Michael Keaney Mercuria Business School Martinlaaksontie 36 01620 Vantaa Finland michael.keaney@mbs.fi From Michael.Keaney at mbs.fi Tue Nov 6 02:30:04 2001 From: Michael.Keaney at mbs.fi (Keaney Michael) Date: Sat Jul 8 08:08:24 2006 Subject: [A-List] Fleet Street's finest Message-ID: Tom Warren writes: I am under the impression that the Telegraph is a reliable source, but I am not THAT familiar with brit media. ===== Hmmm. In an earlier post I cross-sectioned the UK press into categories such as highbrow rightwing crap, middlebrow centrist crap, lowbrow, etc. While the Guardian dons the mantle of highbrow centre leftism, the Telegraph is the paper of choice for the cultured punk Thatcherites, that dwindling remnant of the once hegemonic element of the British state that cannot reconcile itself to the loss of empire, full UK participation in Europe, immigration, multiculturalism, etc. While this is very congenial, politically speaking, for its proprietor, Conrad Black, I suspect that it is also very handy for the new dominant tendency within the British state, which is using the Telegraph to accomplish a goal analogous to that accomplished by the Guardian in the mid to late 1970s/early 80s, which was to bash the Labour Party from the left (quite a feat, all things considered). The Telegraph has been pulling the Conservative Party rightward, consistently supporting its new non-entity leader, Iain Duncan Smith, against the much more accomplished and substantial figure of Kenneth Clarke, whose europhilia is anathema to the Telegraph's (and Black's) studiously observed pro-US stance. Black, remember, penned a piece in his National Interest quarterly that suggested that Britain should leave the EU and join NAFTA. Some within the Conservative Party have actually taken this seriously. However, interfering proprietor that he is, Black is not the only one to call the shots at the Telegraph. I've also forwarded a Private Eye snippet that mentions the sighting of Telegraph editor Charles Moore leaving the headquarters of MI5, presumably after lunch. The Telegraph's central Asian correspondent, Ahmed Rashid, is widely respected and his book on the Taliban is garnering praise from a wide spectrum of opinion. He seems to be a good journalist with a keen objectively analytical eye. However, another article I've forwarded from Private Eye suggests that Rashid's expertise is being pushed aside in favour of the musings of Mrs Black, Barbara Amiel, not previously noted for her expertise on geopolitics. As befits a paper with a strongly establishment lineage, there is a robust tradition of military/defence reporting, although it has to be said that the stuff penned by chief defence correspondent, the military historian Sir John Keegan reflects as much of the old sins of racism and imperial arrogance as it does strategic acumen. In this war of civilisations, the West will prevail By John Keegan Daily Telegraph, 8 October 2001 PRESIDENT BUSH'S threatened war against terrorism has begun. What is so striking at the outset is the brief lapse of time between its declaration and its outbreak. The Gulf War, also led by the United States, took six months to prepare. This war, declared on September 11, the day of the atrocities, is in full swing only 27 days later. All the same stages have been gone through - organisation of an alliance, diplomatic preparation, positioning of forces. The first blow has been struck in one-sixth of the time. Striking quickly, as well as hard, may be a quality of this war deliberately chosen, and with good reason. A harsh, instantaneous attack may be the response most likely to impress the Islamic mind. Surprise has traditionally been a favoured Islamic military method. The use of overwhelming force is, however, alien to the Islamic military tradition. The combination of the two is certainly designed to unsettle America's current enemy and probably will. Samuel Huntington, the Harvard political scientist, outlined in a famous article written in the aftermath of the Cold War his vision of the next stage hostilities would take. Rejecting the vision of a New World Order, proposed by President Bush senior, he insisted that mankind had not rid itself of the incubus of violence, but argued that it would take the form of conflict between cultures, in particularly between the liberal, secular culture of the West and the religious culture of Islam. Huntington's "clash of civilisations" was widely discussed, though it was not taken seriously by some. Since September 11 it has been taken very seriously indeed. If I thought Huntington's view had a defect, it was that he did not discuss what I think the crucial ingredient of any Western-Islamic conflict, their quite distinctively different ways of making war. Westerners fight face to face, in stand-up battle, and go on until one side or the other gives in. They choose the crudest weapons available, and use them with appalling violence, but observe what, to non-Westerners may well seem curious rules of honour. Orientals, by contrast, shrink from pitched battle, which they often deride as a sort of game, preferring ambush, surprise, treachery and deceit as the best way to overcome an enemy. This is not to stereotype Afghans, Arabs, Chechens or any other Islamic nationality traditionally hostile to the West as devious or underhand, nor is it to stereotype Islam in its military manifestation. The difference in styles of warfare is borne out by the fact of military history. Western warfare had its origins in the conflicts of the citizens of the Greek city states who fought to defend the strictly defined borders of their small political units. Beyond their world the significant military powers, however, were nomads, whose chosen method was the raid and the surprise attack. Once they acquired a superior means of mobility, in the riding horse, they developed a style of warfare which settled people found almost impossible to resist. The Arabs were horse-riding raiders before Mohammed. His religion, Islam, inspired the raiding Arabs to become conquerors of terrifying power, able to overthrow the ancient empires both of Byzantium and Persia and to take possession of huge areas of Asia, Africa and Europe. It was only very gradually that the historic settled people, the Chinese, the Western Europeans, learnt the military methods necessary to overcome the nomads. They were the methods of the Greeks, above all drill and discipline. The last exponents of nomadic warfare, the Turks, were not turned back from the frontiers of Europe until the 17th century. Thereafter the advance of Western military power went unchecked. One Islamic state after another went down to defeat, until in 1918 the last and greatest, the Ottoman empire, was overthrown. After 1918 the military power of the Western world stood apparently unchallengeable. The Oriental tradition, however, had not been eliminated. It reappeared in a variety of guises, particularly in the tactics of evasion and retreat practised by the Vietcong against the United States in the Vietnam war. On September 11, 2001 it returned in an absolutely traditional form. Arabs, appearing suddenly out of empty space like their desert raider ancestors, assaulted the heartlands of Western power, in a terrifying surprise raid and did appalling damage. President Bush in his speech to his nation and to the Western world yesterday, promised a traditional Western response. He warned that there would be "a relentless accumulation of success". Relentlessness, as opposed to surprise and sensation, is the Western way of warfare. It is deeply injurious to the Oriental style and rhetoric of war-making. Oriental war-makers, today terrorists, expect ambushes and raids to destabilise their opponents, allowing them to win further victories by horrifying outrages at a later stage. Westerners have learned, by harsh experience, that the proper response is not to take fright but to marshal their forces, to launch massive retaliation and to persist relentlessly until the raiders have either been eliminated or so cowed by the violence inflicted that they relapse into inactivity. News of the first strikes against Afghanistan indicate that a tested Western response to Islamic aggression is now well under way. It is not a crusade. The crusades were an episode localised in time and place, in the religious contest between Christianity and Islam. This war belongs within the much larger spectrum of a far older conflict between settled, creative productive Westerners and predatory, destructive Orientals. It is no good pretending that the peoples of the desert and the empty spaces exist on the same level of civilisation as those who farm and manufacture. They do not. Their attitude to the West has always been that it is a world ripe for the picking. When the West turned nasty, and fought back, with better weapons and superior tactics and strategy, the East did not seek to emulate it but to express its anger in new forms of the raid and surprise attack. September 11 was a declaration of war. October 7 was the declaration of a counter-offensive. The counter-offensive will prevail. Sir John Keegan is Defence Editor Full article at: http://www.dailytelegraph.co.uk/01/10/8/do01.html Of course there may also be, from time to time, shadenfreude at US errors, the implication being that "we British" would never make such silly mistakes. But times have moved on, and the Telegraph's position is an anachronism, one that serves the present hegemons very well in marginalising and potentially destroying what has been the main political opposition to New Labour in Britain. The Liberal Democrats are lining up to become HM Official Opposition, and the next general election will decide whether or not that goal is achieved. Michael Keaney Mercuria Business School Martinlaaksontie 36 01620 Vantaa Finland michael.keaney@mbs.fi From Michael.Keaney at mbs.fi Tue Nov 6 02:43:03 2001 From: Michael.Keaney at mbs.fi (Keaney Michael) Date: Sat Jul 8 08:08:24 2006 Subject: [A-List] Europe/US rivalry Message-ID: Ulrich Beck is a sociologist whose major work has been to theorise what he calls the "risk society" (see various books published by Sage). Interesting to see that he has an appointment at LSE, where the likeminded Anthony Giddens holds court. That Beck is publishing this in the FT is interesting, especially the day after John Lloyd's distillation of his Demos-published tract on the third way approach to the current situation (http://lists.econ.utah.edu/pipermail/a-list/2001-November/003363.html). Globalisation's Chernobyl September 11 exposed neoliberalism's shortcomings as a solution to the world's conflicts, argues Ulrich Beck Financial Times, Nov 06 2001 The terrorist attacks on America were the Chernobyl of globalisation. Just as the Russian disaster undermined our faith in nuclear energy, so September 11 exposed the false promise of neoliberalism. The suicide bombers not only exposed the vulnerability of western civilisation but also gave a taste of the conflicts that globalisation can bring. Suddenly, the seemingly irrefutable tenets of neoliberalism - that economics will supercede politics, that the role of the state will diminish - lose their force in a world of global risks. The privatisation of aviation security in the US provides just one example, albeit a highly symbolic one. America's vulnerability is indeed very much related to its political philosophy. It was long suspected that the US was a possible target of terrorist attacks. But, unlike in Europe, aviation security was privatised and entrusted to highly flexible part-time workers who are paid even less than employees in fast-food restaurants. It is America's self-image that creates its vulnerability. The horrible pictures of New York contain an as yet un-decoded message: a state can neoliberalise itself to death. Neoliberalism has always been a fair-weather philosophy, one that works only when there are no serious conflicts and crises. It asserts that only globalised markets, freed from regulation and bureaucracy, can remedy the world's ills - unemployment, poverty, economic breakdown and the rest. Today, the capitalist fundamentalists' unswerving faith in the redeeming power of the market has proved to be a dangerous illusion. In times of crises, neoliberalism has no solutions to offer. Fundamental truths that were pushed aside return to the fore. Without taxation, there can be no state. Without a public sphere, democracy and civil society, there can be no legitimacy. And without legitimacy, no security. From this, it follows that without legitimate forums for settling national and global conflicts, there will be no world economy in any form whatsoever. Neoliberalism insisted that economics should break free of national models and instead impose transnational rules of business conduct. But, at the same time, it assumed that government would stick to national boundaries and the old way of doing things. Since September 11, governments have rediscovered the possibilities and power of international co-operation - for example, in maintaining internal security. Suddenly the necessity of statehood, the counter-principle of neoliberalism, is omnipresent. A European arrest warrant that supersedes national sovereignty in judicial and legal enforcement - unthinkable until recently - has become a possibility. We may soon see a similar convergence towards shared rules and frameworks in economics. In this sense, terrorism has achieved the exact opposite of what it intended: it has brought forth an era of globalised government, the cross-border invention of politics through networking and co-operation. It turns out that resistance merely accelerates globalisation's development. Here, then, is the central paradox: globalisation is the name given to a strange process that is driven forward both by those who support it and by those who oppose it. Just think of the precision with which the terrorists choreographed their attacks on New York and Washington, knowing that their deeds would be transmitted live around the world by global media networks. Does this mean that globalisation itself is the root cause of terrorism? Was September 11 an understandable reaction to a steamroller that is going to destroy even the most remote corners of the world? No. No abstract idea, no God, can justify or excuse the attacks. Globalisation is an ambiguous process but one that cannot be rolled back. Smaller and weaker states in particular are turning away from autarky in an effort to catch up with world markets. But we need to combine economic integration with cosmopolitan politics. Human dignity, cultural identity and otherness must be taken more seriously in the future. Since September 11, the gulf between the world of those who profit from globalisation and the world of those who feel threatened by it has been closed. Helping those who have been excluded is no longer a humanitarian task. It is in the west's own interest: the key to its security. To turn back the hatred felt by billions of people, the wells that will always nourish Osama bin Ladens, globalisation must become accountable and its fruits and freedoms must be distributed more fairly. The danger is that the exact opposite will happen: that the imagined risks and false promises of security will instead create a spiral of expectations that can only end in disappointment. There is a risk that transnational co-operation will become a means of creating fortresses, states in which both the freedom of democracy and the freedom of markets are sacrificed on the altar of private security. The author is professor of sociology at the university of Munich and at the London School of Economics Full article at: http://news.ft.com/ft/gx.cgi/ftc?pagename=View&c=Article&cid=FT3U5G8OOTC &live=true Michael Keaney Mercuria Business School Martinlaaksontie 36 01620 Vantaa Finland michael.keaney@mbs.fi From Michael.Keaney at mbs.fi Tue Nov 6 02:45:03 2001 From: Michael.Keaney at mbs.fi (Keaney Michael) Date: Sat Jul 8 08:08:24 2006 Subject: [A-List] North Sea oil and gas Message-ID: UK seeks Norway gas links to ease concerns Financial Times, Nov 2, 2001 By DAVID BUCHAN Britain and Norway are to study proposedpipeline connections to bring Norwegian gas into the increasingly import-dependent UK market and ease concerns about relying on more distant supplies. The North Sea oil and gas fields should be "seen as one area rather than two divided by a border", said Brian Wilson, the energy minister, as he and Einar Steensnaes, his Norwegian counterpart, announced the creation of a joint working group. It will consist of government and industry representatives of the Pilot group set up to extend the life of the UK North Sea oil sector, and of Topplederforum, its Norwegian counterpart. "There is scope for more interconnections to give Norway access to our liberalised market and to meet our demands," Mr Wilson told a Norwegian oil and gas conference organised by the CWC group in London. Britain and Norway boosted offshore co-operation earlier this year by agreeing on the Vesterled pipeline to link Norway's Heimdal gas processing facility to the Frigg pipeline, which links the dwindling Frigg field to Britain. Mr Wilson is chairing the government's energy review, which is partly motivated by the fact that Britain is sliding into import dependence for gas. The government would prefer to take gas from its neighbouring ally rather than more distant and possibly volatile Russia. Mr Wilson pointed out that "carriage of Norwegian gas also prolongs the life of UK pipelines", which in turn remained available to help squeeze more out of the British sector. The UK developed its part of the North Sea earlier and faster than Norway, which has husbanded its resources. Full article at: http://globalarchive.ft.com/globalarchive/articles.html?print=true&id=01 1102001078 Michael Keaney Mercuria Business School Martinlaaksontie 36 01620 Vantaa Finland michael.keaney@mbs.fi From Michael.Keaney at mbs.fi Tue Nov 6 02:49:03 2001 From: Michael.Keaney at mbs.fi (Keaney Michael) Date: Sat Jul 8 08:08:24 2006 Subject: [A-List] Energy crisis Message-ID: BUSINESS & THE ENVIRONMENT 3: Machines run on hydrogen an option for the long haul: CARBON-FREE EMISSIONS by Matthew Jones: The replacement of hydrocarbons as an energy source will not occur overnight Financial Times, Nov 5, 2001 By MATTHEW JONES Since primitive man discovered how to use and control fire from lightning strikes the world has been largely reliant on energy sources that produce carbon dioxide, the main gas blamed for global warming. Reversing this trend of more than a million years will be a challenge of incredible proportions. In the medium term it is accepted that reductions in carbon dioxide emissions will be mainly achieved by making current fossil fuel technology more efficient, through carbon trading schemes and greater energy conservation. However, a growing number of ambitious projects to demonstrate the viability of a "zero carbon" economy are also beginning to gather momentum. Earlier this month Cambridge University said it would be the first in Britain to pioneer a carbon-free public transport scheme after winning financial backing in principle from the European Commission. The project, linking the centre of the city to the university's new science campus on the western outskirts, will use solar energy to convert water into hydrogen, which will then be used to power a specially designed bus. The only emissions will be harmless water vapour, oxygen and heat. A similar scheme is being developed in partnership with the municipality of Gotland, a Swedish island in the Baltic Sea. Carbon-free mini buses are planned to start operating in Visby, a World Heritage city, one month after Cambridge's hydrogen bus hits the roads in late 2003. Solar power for the Cambridge project will be provided by a 350m long colonnade covered with photovoltaic cells. The electricity produced will be used to extract hydrogen from water using a process of electrolysis. Up to 10 days supply of the gas will then be stored in a tank half the size of a shipping container and converted back to electricity when needed by a fuel cell inside the bus. Whitby Bird and Partners, the designer of both the Cambridge and Gotland projects, admits that the Cambridge scheme will be about seven times more expensive than a traditional bus service. However, it points out that the price could be reduced over time if solar cells were incorporated into buildings, as will be the case in Gotland, and if production of solar and fuel cells increased. Shane Slater, project manager for the scheme, believes the technology's full potential lies beyond transport to include static energy requirements for homes, offices, factories and hospitals. "Instead of being a drain on energy, buildings could generate their own electricity supplies as well as providing fuel for transport uses," he says. Other hydrogen enthusiasts are pursuing different ways of producing the fuel from renewable means. Projects under development include plans by Iceland to use its abundant geothermal resources. The island aims to become the world's first carbon-free economy and is examining plans to run public transport, private vehicles and fishing vessels on hydrogen. A consortium of Statkraft of Norway, Sydkraft of Sweden and ABB of Switzerland has also agreed to build a hydrogen plant driven by wind power next year, and similar proposals for static energy needs are being explored by Nunavut, the northern Canadian territory. David Hart, head of hydrogen research at Imperial College's centre for energy policy and technology in London, believes remote economies which do not have an indigenous supply of oil may be able to make the switch to a carbon-free economy in as little as five or 10 years time. "Hydrogen is a much more flexible way of storing electricity than other systems such as batteries, flywheels and supercapacitors and could be cheaper than transporting oil to remote locations. "This technology is ideal for places such as the Mediterranean islands where a clean environment is an important issue for tourism and the costs of importing petroleum products are high," he says. For the rest of the world the transition will take much longer. Michael Jones, hydrogen technology manager at BP, the world's largest solar cell manufacturer as well as a top three oil and gas producer, says the costs of renewable energy in less remote areas will remain uncompetitive for decades, despite increasing financial incentives for countries to adopt green energy schemes. In the meantime, hydrogen energy systems will evolve, but the hydrogen will be produced by reforming fossil fuels either in large scale plants or using mini-reformers built into vehicles. This will achieve only partial carbon savings, but will be a marginal improvement on the most fuel efficient combustion engines today and will pave the way for a truly zero-carbon economy. Oil companies have been accused by environmental campaigners of having a vested interest in keeping the world dependent on fossil fuels for as long as possible. However, Mr Jones points out that BP and others are investigating ways of capturing the carbon released in reforming oil and gas. By injecting it into depleted oil and gas fields they can effectively achieve zero carbon emissions at a more viable price. "There is no sense building higher barriers than necessary to getting the hydrogen economy off the ground. We will see towards the end of the decade more introduction of fuel cells into vehicles and buildings but for at least the next 25 years hydrocarbons will continue to be the main source of primary energy," he says. Full article at: http://globalarchive.ft.com/globalarchive/articles.html?print=true&id=01 1105001271 Michael Keaney Mercuria Business School Martinlaaksontie 36 01620 Vantaa Finland michael.keaney@mbs.fi From Michael.Keaney at mbs.fi Tue Nov 6 03:02:03 2001 From: Michael.Keaney at mbs.fi (Keaney Michael) Date: Sat Jul 8 08:08:24 2006 Subject: [A-List] Britain/US split Message-ID: For a good indication of what passes for thought in the corridors of the British state, Guardian reportage and commentary is usually sufficient. This article follows on from Seymour Hersh's New Yorker article, putting rather a different gloss on US military adventures than you might hear from Rumsfeld. Revealed: how bungled US raid came close to disaster ?Delta Force caught in ferocious Taliban ambush ?Debacle prompted review of war tactics Luke Harding in Quetta Julian Borger in Washington and Richard Norton-Taylor Tuesday November 6, 2001 The Guardian The Pentagon's only publicly announced commando raid on Taliban positions, hailed as a success and beamed around the world in grainy video pictures only hours after it took place, actually went badly wrong, seriously injuring American soldiers, sources in Pakistan said yesterday. The debacle, which saw US Delta Force soldiers come under intense fire from the Taliban, prompted a review of special forces operations in Afghanistan and seems to have led to a delay in similar behind-the-lines operations. The ferocity of the Taliban resistance caught US commandos unawares and showed that 13 days of bombing had failed to break the Taliban's organisational morale. It has sparked a debate in the Pentagon on the advisability of such daring missions in the absence of clear intelligence. Soon after the October 20 raid, the US appeared to switch its military strategy, throwing its weight fully behind the Northern Alliance, relying on the opposition movement to provide ground troops for the campaign. The day after the raid the Pentagon hailed the operation a success, which proved that US forces could strike anywhere at any time and in a manner of their choosing. However, details provided to the Guardian by sources in Pakistan and the US, together with American press reports, have present quite a different picture. ? A raid led by Delta Force commandos on a Kandahar compound of the Taliban's leader, Mullah Mohammed Omar, ran into heavy resistance, causing serious casualties and forcing a retreat. One US soldier's foot was blown off. ? A simultaneous raid by army rangers on a Kandahar airstrip was carried out only after forward troops had checked that the area was clear. It was mainly for the benefit of the cameras, and to boost the rangers' morale. ? The fierce Taliban response to the Delta Force raid led to a review of similar planned operations, and led to questioning of the leadership of the war's US commander, General Tommy Franks. According to an authoritative and independent source in constant touch with Kandahar, Delta Force comm