The actions of the long haul truckers show this, she says, and others may follow. “What did the government do in this situation?” It made concessions that had the effect of showing that its earlier actions were “unjust” and should not have been taken in the first place. Russians can see that.
“Now, legislation should be very carefully considered, for numerous laws that have been adopted are putting additional burdens on business and on the population. “Unfortunately, in the government, they continue to accept laws” designed to extract more resources from the population and are imposing them to try to cope with the crisis.
The share of poor families in Russia—those with not enough income to buy food or clothing—in the past year has almost doubled from 22 percent to 39 percent, according to the All-Russian Public Opinion Research Center.
Freedom, it so happens, carries with it a great many temptations and pitfalls, and no one among Russia’s powerful and propertied today has managed to resist these temptations. Impunity has made it impossible to cure Russia’s corruption with a simple outpatient procedure.
Twenty-four years and two days ago, the Soviet Union dissolved itself, a fact of political life and history that today places Putin, the oligarchs, the Russians, and the rest of the world in the 25th year past the monumental failure of the communist experiment. Today’s apparent “experiment” in place of the last one: feudalism in the form of a medieval revanche harking back to the days of Nicholas II and his establishment of the grandaddy of Russian political police, the Okhrana.
In a possibly Orwellian turn of events, Mikhail Khodorkovsky, so pleasingly pardoned before the Winter Olympics at Sochi has been returned (by Putin’s regime) to the status of an accused enemy of the Russian state, and “arrested in absentia” (the courts and defense are starting to kick around the absurdity — although Putin denies involvement, the state’s reputation developed under his auspices undermines claims to forthright character, i.e., too much has taken place “behind the curtains”).
I think the Cold War, in essence, wraps around the “Islamic Small Wars” (my term), and on top of feudalism, a part of the framework involves the despotic attempting to “stage manage” the appearance of their wars. That may be called “political theater”, KGB style.
On Back-Channels, I’ve worked up to the incubation of ISIS as a political tool useful to Putin, Assad, and Khamenei — http://conflict-backchannels.com/…/syria-assad-vs-the…/ . Now that it’s not working out so well, the firestarter, perhaps, has to join the firemen in at least some aspects of common endeavor. Still: the stake for the anti-western axis, including Islamic terrorists, is the sustaining of the medieval worldview and their own “absolute power” within it.
The Soviet dissolved 24 years and one day ago (Dec. 26, 1991).
However, the spirit of aristocracy and privilege has come to live on in Putin’s “New Nobility” and beside it as well relationships formed around the idea of sustaining the worlds of absolute authority and the profiting of a few at the expense of the many through a familiar script: seduce, Subjugate, PLUNDER!
To be flip, Obama appears to be maintaining the middle east’s new imbalance of power. smile emoticon
As regards sectarian favoring of any kind, he has referred to involvement in Iraq and Syria and elsewhere by characterizing such conflicts in a catch-all: “another dumb war in the middle east” — and “dumb” because war cannot and will not decide anything having to do with the nature of God.
Those who have visited or followed BackChannels, e.g., http://conflict-backchannels.com/…/ftac-on-separation…/ know that the present Moscow-Damascus-Tehran axis of power promotes and sustains by example of the Syrian Tragedy medieval absolute power. Different talks — same walks: what Putin, Assad, and Khamenei share is the will to completely control their constituencies to serve themselves. One possible Obama Administration underlying strategy: avoid the hot war with Russia over the character of 21st Century Feudalism vs 21st Century Modernity and quietly (!) drawn down the mess-making capacities of the feudal axis. As much has nothing to do with identification as a Shiite Muslim per se — only identification with the medieval worldview that (in the mind) makes the distinction so important.
As regards the Sunni side of this most complex quadratic puzzle, U.S. aid and trade are inseparable from Sunni-led state defense capacities, and as much has been so for Jordan and Saudi Arabia for some time.
The ocular, as it were, through which one views these conflicts — I sometimes call the same the “Islamic Small Wars” — is through an etching of the behaviors plus zones of influence set through the Soviet Era — the Cold War — and transitioned through time in Putin’s neo-feudal Russian revanche.
The 24th anniversary of the dissolving of the Soviet will take place the day after Christmas, i.e., December 26. The occasion must have then seemed quite the gift to the pro-democratic and foreign policy oriented of the United States. However, influencing the transition turned rocky with the ebullient activity of unbridled Russian mafia and the machinations of the once “Party privileged” to remain privileged. Blame Berezovsky if you must (you must) — at least he’s a safe bet for criticism — and otherwise welcome to the “Vertical of Power” and the New Nobility.
The “quadratic conflict”?
(Medieval vs Modern) x (Sectarian vs Plural / Shiite vs Sunni / Post-Soviet Arc vs NATO + Alliance ME)
As regards standard American and western cultural values, the politics become convoluted as western defenses include some cooperation from Sunni-associated powers, e.g., the Kingdom and Turkey (whether or not Erdogan likes it — and, of course, he can’t like it, but he’s out of the Shiite-associated loop that wobbles around the beleaguered regime in Damascus).
None but close family pay attention to 24th anniversaries but when a state reaches such a milestone and the dysfunctional family of nations has been yoked to its internal politics and foreign affairs, some notice might be in order, for a year plus six days from this one, there will be a 25th Anniversary of that most singular and wondrous of near historical events.
In childhood, the kid with the chessboard chooses his opponent. Why not in adulthood? And what if you could not only control you opponent but make the same another rival’s opponent . . . how cool would that be?
That would be so far beyond cool as to have arrived at deliciously evil.
Bashar al-Assad’s best defense, for the realpolitik theatrical “Assad vs The Terrorists” becomes for the general opposition, including NATO opposition to the tyrant’s rule, “Assad or The Terrorists” (mirroring slogan: “Assad, Or We Burn The Country”).
Related to the previous, ISIS becomes the primary military war-on-terror focus for the west, which comes with diplomatic, human, and financial costs to the west.
Incubated by its own enemy, the Assad regime and its backers, ISIS has been positioned in time and space to destroy the revolution once pressed by the Free Syrian Army and serve as a foil to the combined forces of Assad, Khamenei, and Putin, all of whom today may at will attack the same even if preferring other non-ISIS (and still noncombatant) targets.
In ISIS, Khamenei (he may thank Assad and Putin) has chosen a familiar Sunni opposition for Iran’s purchase in Iraq’s Shiite militia community. Once again, Iranian Revolutionary Guard get to get their boots into battle with their old Baathist foes, now serving as generals in Baghdadi’s cause.
Related Teasers, Links, and Reference
The North Atlantic Treaty Organization, established in 1949, has 28 members devoted to the idea of collective security. Prediction: By the time President Obama leaves office in 2017, the NATO pledge of mutual defense in response to aggression will have been exposed as worthless. Objectively the alliance will have ceased to exist. The culprits? Vladimir Putin—and Barack Obama.
The long-term aim would be to defeat or demoralise the non-Isil opposition, so that Isil became the regime’s only enemy. That would force the West to back President Bashar al-Assad against it. “They want to clean the country of non-Isil rebels, and then the US will work with them as Isil will be the only enemy,” the Damascus source said.
Russia bombed Syria for a third day on Friday, mainly hitting areas held by rival insurgent groups rather than the Islamic State fighters it said it was targeting and drawing an increasingly angry response from the West.
The U.S.-led coalition that is waging its own air war against Islamic State called on the Russians to halt strikes on targets other than Islamic State.
Next came Russia’s move on Syria. The weapons that Russia is sending there are not an attempt to settle the conflict. They are there to protect the Assad regime, which is its cause. Moreover, ISIL does not have warplanes: Russia’s air defense missiles are in Syria for a different purpose.
This became clear on Wednesday, when America was given less than an hour’s warning that the Kremlin was imposing, in effect, a no-fly zone in Syria. With this the Russians not only mounted a direct challenge to American authority. They also ripped up the rulebook of military diplomacy. America was aghast, but had no response.
The Ba’ath regime was strongly anti-American, so it’s not surprising that–despite the unfortunate fate of the Iraqi Communist Party–it was primarily a client of the Soviet Union (not the US), and this relationship continued up until the moment when the Soviet Union collapsed.
That Baathists helped ISIS, before the declaration of the ‘Caliphate,’ to rush into Iraq last year, and assist in the battles for key nodes in Iraq, is indisputable. Even in the Second Battle of Tikrit, just fought in the past few weeks, Baathists were a prominent component of ISIS forces. The very fact that Saddam Hussein’s al-Tikriti tribe was tossed out of their tribal domain certainly bore the hallmarks of the ultimate revenge against the Baathist core.
Moscow’s action were in line with the strategy it had used to defeat the separatist movement in Chechnya, infiltrating the insurgency, driving it into extremism, and facilitating the arrival of al-Qaeda jihadists who displaced the Chechen nationalists. In Syria, Russia’s actions accord with the strategy adopted by the regime and its Iranian masters to present Assad as the last line of defence against a terrorist takeover of Syria and a genocide against the minorities. New evidence has emerged to underline these points.
Testimony from gendarmerie officers in court documents reviewed by Reuters allege that rocket parts, ammunition and semi-finished mortar shells were carried in trucks accompanied by state intelligence agency (MIT) officials more than a year ago to parts of Syria under Islamist control.
Four trucks were searched in the southern province of Adana in raids by police and gendarmerie, one in November 2013 and the three others in January 2014, on the orders of prosecutors acting on tip-offs that they were carrying weapons, according to testimony from the prosecutors, who now themselves face trial.
While the first truck was seized, the three others were allowed to continue their journey after MIT officials accompanying the cargo threatened police and physically resisted the search, according to the testimony and prosecutor’s report.
The world has been dealt a terrible puzzle: Syndicate Red Brown Green (Shiite) has through “Red” (post-Soviet neo-feudal Russia) a nuclear armed block to its ability to impose its better nature; “Brown Green” — national socialist, Islamist (Sunni side) promotes a program unpalatable most to those whose humanity, sense of justice, and sentiment could motivate intercession despite a nuclear armed Russia and an Iran positioned to acquire a similar capability if given about a year’s lead surreptitiously. Change those politics. I think Putin-Assad-Khamenei cannot get off their track by way of their investment in a medieval world view intended to keep themselves in power to the end of time. Baghdadi is about in the same place, but others might not be.
The God (concept) intended by the Jews was thrown out beyond the universe, made greater than even the universe, and with finality separated from humans, even Moses — and not even Moses parts the waters — and this is why. Somewhere between Assad and ISIS, the middle must pioneer its way, cast off the medieval, reach for something more human, more kind, more modern, more present, more survivable, more evolving, more progressing.
Perhaps when Syrians involved in fighting perceive their jihad as one involving the middle against the extremes, they will be on their way to peace.
For this day, dependence on the medieval concentration of power in one dictator, dynasty, junta, or nobility masks off the potential for a greater future. “Syndicate Red Brown Green” appears to be playing — by having other people die for its privileges –for the feudal mode and the perpetual war needed to keep the criminally powerful and wealthy in business for generations.
Blame Berezovsky (the wealthy man who effectively upgraded Putin’s political clout — http://www.thedailybeast.com/…/how-boris-berezovsky…). The Russians, as a people, and Afghanistan as a financial black hole for military expansion, managed to derail the Soviet (dissolved December 26, 1991); however, hardline privileged had already produced a plan to outlive the Soviet (reference: Karen Dawisha – http://www.miamioh.edu/…/cultural…/putins-russia/ – and the results of that today plus the Islamist stance of the opposition (Assad needed “the terrorists” for his play, “Assad vs The Terrorists”) has led to today’s mass murder and destruction in Syria.
Compression and distillation matter.
The ability of the average victims of fascist and feudal sociopaths may depend on a quick pickup on critical information — accurate, clear, complete (delivered honesty and with the highest integrity) — and the independent discernment and both personal and public political decision making it enables.
A good telegraphy should open on to new worlds, truth revealing and trustworthy.
For those with the necessary time and resources (and intellectual freedom), the Russian Section of the Library of this blog provides ample reference for seeing the Putin machinery as it worked across the president’s years in power and across the arc of the impositions of the Soviet Era.
For those horrified by the destruction wrought by Assad in Syria and determined to address it, BackChannels suggests addressing first endemic Syrian anti-Semitism and anti-westernism, which may contribute to blocking greater western intercession — actually, at the moment, any intercession — in Syria.
“. . . we trust the Russians. They proved throughout the crisis, the last four years, they proved they are honest, transparent, and have principles . . . .”
Without Putin, Bashar al-Assad as a dynastic leader would have been finished in 2011. However, instead of appropriately responding to Syrian complaints at the time and the yearning for a voice in their own governance, Assad chose to arrest and torture children. All that has changed in the past four years has been the scope in breadth and cruelty of the punishment meted to noncombatant Syrians.
At the outset, President Vladimir Putin’s post-Soviet neo-feudal Russia presented a block to the start of the erosion of the Assad family’s absolute ruling power; next: Assad cultivated ISIS by selectively not bombing the al-Qaeda Typicals in their infancy, which then dealt to himself a glorious piece — in his warped eyes — of political theater, “Assad vs The Terrorist”. Putin, Assad, and Khamenei each knew “The Terrorists”, which have largely turned out to be ISIS, although many other and similar organizations exist in the field, would present an even more difficult challenge to the west.
For Khamenei, nothing could sustain an Islamic theocratic tyranny in Iran quite like the prospect and reality of a continuous Great Shiite vs Sunni Battle, for which ISIS would conveniently serve as foil to the further expression and regional projection of Iranian Shiite power.
For the west, perhaps, there is less of “reset” in what has taken place in Syria and more of pressing the collapse of Soviet-style “state capitalism” in the form of an oligarchy — a “new nobility” — brought into existence and managed by Putin. From that perspective, Russia has stalled in Syria and Crimea — and given the price of oil at the well these days — or the evident callousness of the Russian leadership — it may not want the burden of settling either conflict or reconstructing that which it has helped destroy, both “hot spots” being more effective at bleeding the west of financial resources and focus. With U.S. President Obama shrugging away much of that form of challenge — or seeming to do that — that tack may not be going so well.
Similar observations may be made in regard to Iran’s position.
Even though it will see immense cash flow for the “nuclear deal”, the regime will have to deal with greater greed around itself as well as its unpopular extension through wars by proxy in the region.
Who knows but that Hezbollah will tire of its men dying for the ambitions of the Ayatollah.
Still, nothing will change all that fast.
While Putin, Assad, and Khamenei together defend “absolute power”, the suffering accompanying that psychology — and what ISIS means to bring to Syrians, i.e., greater tyranny in the name of God, will be even worse — will grow worse: the “Eye Doctor” has lost himself in his own inverted fantasia, a world in which Putin’s Russia has proven “honest, transparent, and principled” (tell that to Ukrainians) and Syrians suffer primarily at the hands of “The Terrorists” and not beneath the barrel bombs dropped on the most helpless of them by Assad’s own air force.
The “additional reference” section may be at this point outmoded by a very good and quick Google search engine. We can find what we may want to read in flash; whether we can find the conversation we need to have as quickly remains to be seen.
It hasn’t occurred to the world that Gaza and Syria both suffer deeply beneath the boots of those sharing the same feudal mentality. Putin, Assad, and Khamenei may be blamed for Syria, which for the Obama Administration may represent the final chapter on the dissolving of the Soviet Union about 25 years ago. Khamenei’s interest in feudal absolute power has its mirrors in Sunni Islam, not uniformly or officially, but nonetheless those with a medieval mentality sponsor Hamas to continue the brutalization and exploitation of the residents of Gaza.
While what is represented by the above image was taking place, Putin mustered up about $51 billion for the Winter Olympics in Sochi, and he paid some to transfer Russian nationals living in Syria back to Moscow.
How’s that for humanism?
We all suffer with Syrians whose lives have been swiped like knocked over chessboard pawns, but we may keep in mind too that the origins of the tragedy reach back to the Cold War and, in fact, have been sustained by threat on the post-Soviet neo-feudal side. Today, I believe that side is hurting, or has been hurt, by Saudi-aided reduced oil pricing, sanctions, in-state piracy by both Moscow and Tehran, and by “hybrid warfare” and “war by proxy” aggression and the financial and political costs attending each. Those old friends, official Russia, Syria, and Iran have been playing losing hands, but they’re taking their constituents down with them while “living large and in charge” of their small but special space.
If the repetition of themes times me, I know the same will tire readers.
The prompt for the post: an image of suffering from Syria — a boy in pain on a gurney located close to the latest fighting — and the wish the people would genuinely care as much about Syria as the “fake Palestinian cause”.
Fair enough.
While the New Old Now Old Far Out and Lost Left may embrace the old KGB-PLO relationship and other might come to appreciate what the Hamas billionaires (Haniyeh and Mashaal both qualify) really represent in the brutal occupation and repression of the people of Gaza — well, most of the resident because some have made some pretty good money off the sustained conflict and related local exploitation and repression — most in the anti-Semitic bunches simply don’t know the history well enough to avoid their own seduction by feudal — also absolute, fascist, and ruthless — powers.
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