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Why Murdoch's Journal Loves
Kasparov
MIKE WHITNEY
Counterpunch
Thursday December 6, 2007
On Sunday, Putin's party, United Russia, stormed
to victory in the country's parliamentary elections with 63 per
cent of the vote. It was a romp. United Russia now controls 306
of the 450 seats in the Duma, an overwhelming majority. The balloting
was a referendum on Putin's leadership and it passed in a landslide.
Now it's certain, that even if Putin steps down as president next
year as expected, he will be the dominant player in Russian politics
for the foreseeable future.
Vladamir Putin is arguably the most popular leader in Russian
history, although you'd never know it by reading the western media.
According to a recent survey conducted by the Wall Street Journal,
Putin's personal approval rating in November 2007 was 85 per cent,
making him the most popular head of state in the world today.
Putin's popularity derives from many factors. He is personally
clever and charismatic. He is fiercely nationalistic and has worked
tirelessly to improve the lives of ordinary Russians and restore
the country to its former greatness. He has raised over 20 million
Russians out of grinding poverty, improved education, health care
and the pension system, (partially) nationalized critical industries,
lowered unemployment, increased manufacturing and exports, invigorated
Russian markets, strengthened the ruble, raised the overall standard
of living, reduced government corruption, jailed or exiled the
venal oligarchs, and amassed capital reserves of $450 billion.
Russia is no longer up for grabs like it was after the fall of
the Soviet Union. Putin put an end to all of that. He reasserted
control over the country's vast resources and he's using them
to improve the lives of his own people. This is a real departure
from the 1990s, when the drunken Yeltsin steered Russia into economic
disaster by following Washington's neoliberal edicts and by selling
Russia's Crown Jewels to the vulturous oligarchs. Putin put Russia's
house back in order; stabilized the ruble, strengthened economic/military
alliances in the region, and removed the corporate gangsters who
had stolen Russia's national assets for pennies on the dollar.
The oligarchs are now all either in jail or have fled the country.
Russia is no longer for sale.
(Article continues below)
Russia is, once again, a major world power and a vital source
of hydrocarbons. It's star is steadily rising just as America's
has begun to wane. This may explain why Putin is loathed by the
West. Freud might call it petroleum envy, but it's deeper than
that. Putin has charted a course for social change that conflicts
with basic tenets of neoliberalism, which are the principles which
govern US foreign policy. He is not a member of the corporate-banking
brotherhood which believes the wealth of the world should be divided
among themselves regardless of the suffering or destruction it
may cause. Putin's primary focus is Russia; Russia's welfare,
Russia's sovereignty and Russia's place in the world. He is not
a globalist.
That is why the Bush administration has encircled Russia with
military bases, toppled neighboring regimes with its color-coded
revolutions, (which were organized by US NGOs and intelligence
services) intervened in Russian elections, and threatened to deploy
an (allegedly defensive) nuclear weapons system in Eastern Europe.
Russia is seen as a potential rival to US imperial ambitions and
must be contained or subverted.
In the early years of his presidency, it was believed that Putin
would comply with western demands and accept a subordinate role
in the US-EU-Israel centric system. But that hasn't happened.
Putin has stubbornly defended Russian independence and resisted
integration into the prevailing system. .
The triumphalism which swept through Washington after the fall
of the Berlin Wall has been replaced with a palpable fear that
Russia's power will grow as oil prices continue to soar. The tectonic
plates of geopolitical power are gradually shifting eastward.
That's why the US has joined in The Great Game and is trying to
put down roots in Eurasia. Still, it's easy to imagine a scenario
in which America's access to the last great oil and natural gas
reserves on the planet--the three trillion barrels of oil and
natural gas located in the Caspian Basin---could be completely
blocked by a resurgent Russian superpower.
The most powerful of the Washington think tanks, the Council
on Foreign Relations, recognized this problem early on and decided
that US policy towards Russia had to be reworked entirely.
* * *
John Edwards and Jack Kemp were appointed to lead a CFR task
force which concocted the pretext for an all-out assault on the
Putin. This is where the idea that Putin is "rolling back
democracy" began. In their article "Russia's Wrong Direction",
Edwards and Kemp state that a "strategic partnership"
with Russia is no longer possible. They claim that the government
has become increasingly authoritarian and that the society is
growing less "open and pluralistic".
Kemp and Edwards provided the ideological foundation upon which
the entire public relations campaign against Putin has been built.
And it is quite an impressive campaign. A Google News search shows
roughly 1,400 articles from the various news services on Putin.
Virtually all of them contain exactly the same rhetoric, the same
buzzwords, the same spurious claims, the same slanders. It is
impossible to find even one article out of 1,400 that diverges
the slightest bit from the talking points which originated at
the Council on foreign Relations.
It's interesting to see to what extent the media has become a
propaganda bullhorn for the national security state. Putin's personal
approval ratings confirm his enormous popularity, and yet, the
media continues to treat him like he's a tyrant. It is utterly
incongruous.
In most articles, Putin is disparaged as "anti democratic";
a charge that is never leveled at the Saudi Royal family even
though women are forbidden to drive, they must be fully-covered
at all times, and can be stoned to death if they are found to
be unfaithful. Also, in Saudi Arabia, beheading is still the punishment
of choice for capital crimes.
When Saudi King Abdullah visits the US, he is not heaped with
scorn for his regimes' repressive treatment of his people. Instead
he's rewarded with flattering photos of he and George Bush strolling
arm-n-arm through the Crawford sage.
Why is Putin blasted for "rolling back democracy" when
American client, Mikhail Saakashvili, arbitrarily declares martial
law and deploys his truncheon-wielding Robo-cops to beat protesters
senseless before dragging them off to the Georgia gulag? The pictures
of Saakashvili's bloody crackdown appeared in the foreign press,
but not in the US. Rather, the media had all its cameras focused
on Garry Kasparov (contributing editor to the Wall Street Journal
and right-wing loony) as he was led off to the Moscow hoosegow
in handcuffs for protesting without a permit.
* * *
Putin's real crime is that he serves Russia's national interests
rather than the interests of global Capital. He also rejects Washington's
"unipolar" world model. As he said in Munich:
"The unipolar world refers to a world in which there is
one master, one sovereign; one center of authority, one center
of force, one center of decision-making. At the end of the day
this is pernicious not only for all those within this system,
but also for the sovereign itself because it destroys itself from
within.
"What is even more important is that the model itself is
flawed because at its basis there is and can be no moral foundations
for modern civilization."
He added:
"We are seeing a greater and greater disdain for the basic
principles of international law....We are witnessing an almost
uncontained hyper use of force -- military force -- in international
relations, force that is plunging the world into an abyss of permanent
conflicts. I am convinced that we have reached that decisive moment
when we must seriously think about the architecture of global
security."
Well said, Vladimir.
Putin's no saint, but he doesn't deserve the thrashing he gets
from the western media.
And a final word on Garry Kasparov
On Sunday, while Putin's party "United Russia" was
screeching to a landslide victory, Reuters News was busy taking
mug-shots of the stony-faced Kasparov holding up Florida-style
ballots claiming the voting was rigged. "They are not just
rigging the vote," Kasparov moaned, "They are raping
the whole electoral system. These elections are a reminder of
Soviet elections when there was no choice.....Putin is going to
have a hard time trying to rule like Stalin."
Stalin? So now Putin is Stalin? First of all, when did Reuters
begin to take such a keen interest in voting irregularities? It
must be a recent development, becuase they were nowhere to be
found in the 2000 presidential election. And when did they start
to pay attention to "political dissent"? They certainly
never wasted any video-footage on the antiwar rallies in the US.
Are we to believe that they are more interested in democracy in
Russia than America?
And why is Reuters so eager to provide valuable column-space
to a washed-up chessmaster who's only interested in making a nuisance
of himself by bellyaching about voter fraud? That's not news;
it's propaganda.
As for Kasparov and his silly accusations; he should be glad
that he lives in Putin's Russia rather than Stalin's or he'd be
in leg-irons right now boarding a northbound train to the Siberian
outback.
What is Kasparov doing in Moscow anyway? And why is this little
man --with virtually no political base -- such a big part of the
western media narrative? Is he only there to discredit the election
and throw a little more muck on Putin or is there more to it than
that?
Garry Kasparov should give up politics and do what he does best;
stand-up comedy. Watching Kasparov traipse around Moscow with
his basket of sour grapes and his entourage of western media-stooges
is like watching "Mr. Bean's Excellent Kremlin Adventure",
a particularly lame performance in a dismal B-rated burlesque.
It's painful to watch.
Kasparov's party, the "Other Russia" couldn't manage
even a 2 per cent rating in the polls. The party is a complete
dud. In fact, Reuters even (reluctantly) admits as much in its
article.
Here's the clip. Reuters: "Kasparov and his "Other
Russia" dissident movement are not standing in Sunday's parliamentary
election because they could not get registered as a party. THEY
ENJOY LITTLE PUBLIC SUPPORT AMONG RUSSIANS BUT HAVE A BIG FOLLOWING
IN THE WEST." (Reuters) "Big following in the West"?
Why doesn't that surprise me?
So, in other words, Kasparov has no base of support in Russia,
and yet he gets his own camera crew and media team to follow him
around recording every silly he says. That's just great. Who do
they think he is; Nelson Mandela?
Kasparov is a contributing editor of Murdoch's Wall Street Journal;
so he already has a regular platform for launching his tirades
on the "tyrannical" Mr. Putin. Normally, one doesn't
get a spot on the op-ed page of the WSJ unless their politics
are somewhere to the right of Augusto Pinochet. That's probably
the case with Kasparov, too. In Saturday's edition of the WSJ,
Kasparov delivered his latest absurd soliloquy disparaging Putin
and recounting his agonizing 5 day ordeal in the Moscow poky.
Although Kasparov has garnered little public support in Russia,
he appears to have a loyal following among the Washington elite.
According to Wikipedia: "In 1991, Kasparov received the Keeper
of the Flame award from the Center for Security Policy (a US think
tank), for anti-Communist resistance and the propagation of democracy.
Kasparov was an exceptional recipient since the award is given
to "individuals for devoting their public careers to the
defense of the United States and American values around the world".
Hmmmm...."For devoting their public careers to the defense
of the United States and American values around the world"?
Isn't that a definition of an American agent?
Again, according to Wikipedia: In April, 2007 it was asserted
that Kasparov was a board member of the National Security Advisory
Council of the Center for Security Policy, a non-profit, non-partisan
national security organization that specializes in identifying
policies, actions, and resource needs that are vital to American
security". Kasparov confirmed this and added that he was
removed shortly after he became aware of it. He noted that HE
DIDN'T KNOW ABOUT THE MEMBERSHIP and suggested he was included
in the board by an accident because he received the 1991 Keeper
of the Flame award from this organization. But Kasparov maintained
his association with the neoconservative leadership by giving
speeches at think tanks such as the Hoover Institute."
Here's a list of some of the other fellow travelers who've been
given the "Keeper of the Flame Award": 2007-Senator
Joe Lieberman. 2004-General Peter Pace. 2003- Paul Wolfowitz.
2002- General Richard Meyers. 1998-Donald Rumsfeld. 1996-Newt
Gingrich. 1995-Ronald Reagan. 1990-Casper Weinberger.
Is Kasparov an anomaly or does he fit right in with this coven
of far-right loonies? And who are some of the prominent members
of the Center for Security Policy? Richard Perle, Douglas Feith,
Frank Gaffney, James Roche and Laura Ingraham. Oh, boy. The whole
front office of the neocon's cuckoo's nest. Now tell me, dear
reader, with friends like that; what should we really think about
Kasparov's performance in Moscow? Is he really interested in "democracy
promotion" as he claims or is their acting out a script that
was prepared in Washington?
In the US, Kasparov has become the focal point of the Russian
elections - the primary source of "unbiased" analysis.
NPR reiterates his spurious claims every half hour. The other
news agencies are no better. He has become the distorted lens
through which Americans view Russian democracy. This says a lot
more about the choke-hold the neocons still have on the media
rather than anything objective about Russia. The Kasparov fiasco
gives us a chance to see the inner-workings of the establishment
media. It's nothing more than a propaganda bullhorn for far-right
organizations executing their bloody imperial strategy. Fidel
Castro summed it up best just days ago when he said: "It
is the most sophisticated media ever developed by technology,
employed to kill human beings and to subjugate or exterminate
peoples".
Amen to that, Fidel.
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