Tag Archives: Putin

Syria – “Assad vs The Terrorists” – How ISIS Defends Assad

02 Friday Oct 2015

Posted by in 21st Century Feudal, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Iran, Iraq, Islamic Small Wars, Middle East, Political Psychology, Russia, Syndicate Red Brown Green, Syria, United States of America

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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.

😉

For Moscow — Putin’s post-Soviet neo-feudal Russia, “New Nobility” and all — ISIS serves at least these functions:

  1. A destination for its own unwanted homegrown Islamist terrorists, i.e., a good place to channel as many as may go.
  2. 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”).
  3. 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.
  4.  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.
  5. Even better, ISIS appears to have had great luck appropriating U.S.-backed bases, equipment, and materiel with a minimum of resistance — or maximum of cooperation.
  6. The Islamist pseudo-dictator Erdogan in Turkey, despite the state’s NATO status, may use the same ISIS excuse as cover to get in some licks against the more familiar enemies of the state, i.e., the Kurdish community (NATO has recently reasserted itself in Turkey through military diplomacy).
  7. As goad to the west and cover for Russian intervention, ISIS has handily provided Moscow with an invitation to produce and bulk up a “forward operating base” in Syria.
  8. Most of all, ISIS serves the preservation of a medieval worldview fit to the possession of political absolute power (political absolutism).

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.

Continetti, Matthew.  “The Coming Defeat of NATO: How Vladimir Putin and Barack Obama will break the Atlantic alliance.”  Washington Free Beacon, October 2, 2015.

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.

Akkoc, Raziye and Roland Oliphant.  “Russia kills US-backed Syrian rebels in second day of air strikes as Iran prepares for ground offensive.”  The Telegraph, October 2, 2015.

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.

Perry, Tom and Lidia Kelly.  “U.S., allies demand Russia halt Syria strikes outside IS areas.”  Reuters, October 2, 2015.

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.

Lucas, Edward.  “In [Putin’s] terms, he is winning.  And on our terms we are losing.” First section, Politico, “What is Putin Really Up To in Syria: 14 Putinologists weigh in.”  October 1, 2015.

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.

Weintraub, Jeffrey.  “Who armed Saddam? – Some Reality Checks.”  Jeff Weintraub (blog), March 31, 2003.

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.

Karasik, Theodore.  The erratic ISIS and Baath party connection.  Al Arabiya, April 18, 2015.

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.

Orton, Kyle. “How Russia Manipulates Islamic Terrorism.” The Syrian Intifada, September 8, 2015.

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.

Pamuk, Humeyra and Nick Tattersall.  “Exclusive: Turkish intelligence helped ship arms to Syrian Islamist rebel areas.”  Reuters, May 21, 2015.

Alfred, Charlotte.  “The Strange Irony Hidden Among the Highest Ranks of ISIS”.  The World Post / Huffington Post, September 12, 2014.

CIA Directorate of Intelligence.  “Soviet Relations with the Baathists in Iraq and Syria: Special Report, Weekly Review, June 27, 1969, approved for release May 2002.

Gardner, David.  “Turkey: The high price of Erdogan’s power grab.”  The Big Read, Financial Times, September 22, 2015.

Hannah, John.  “Erdogan’s Deadly Ambitions.”  Foreign Policy, September 21, 2015.

Lowe, Christian and Julia Edwards.  “Russia to U.S.: talk to us on Syria or risk “unintended incidents’.”  Reuters, September 11, 2015.

Moore, Jack.  “Iranian Military Mastermind Leading Battle to Recapture Tikrit From ISIS.”  Newsweek, March 5, 2015.

O’Toole, Molly.  “Russia is Setting Up A Forward Operating Base in Syria, Pentagon Confirms.”  Defense One, September 14, 2015.

Pamuk, Humeyra and Nick Tattersall.  “Turkey launches heaviest air strikes yet on Kurdish group.”  Reuters, July 29, 2015.

Sly, Liz and Craig Whitlock.  “Turkey denies reaching accord with U.S. on use of air base against Islamic State.”  The Washington Post, October 13, 2014.

The Economist. “Why Turkey called a NATO Article Four consultation.”  July 28, 2015.

Turovsky, Daniil.  “How Isis is recruiting migrant workers in Moscow to join the fighting in Syria.”  The Guardian, May 5, 2015.

Weiss, Michael.  “Russia Is Sending Jihadis to Join ISIS.”  The Daily Beast, August 23, 2015.

Update – December 5, 2015

Orton, Kyle.  “How Assad Funds the Islamic State”.  The Syrian Intifada (blog), November 29, 2015.

Update – June 19, 2016

Fox News.  “Pentagon, Russia hold video conference after bombing of CIA-backed Syria rebels.”  June 18, 2016.

Update – July 25, 2016

Posted to YouTube 10/16/2015.

Update – August 25, 2016

National Coalition of Syrian Revolution and Opposition Forces.  “Harvard University Reveals Secret Documents Proving Assad’s Involvement in Rise of ISIS.”  August 23, 2016.  Article comments from 2015 Der Spiegel article by Christoph Reuter based on papers obtained from the battlespace in 2013.

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Bashar “Barrel Bomb” Assad . . . .

15 Tuesday Sep 2015

Posted by in 21st Century Feudal, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Politics, Syria

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Syrian_Civil_War_barrel_bomb_attacks

BEIRUT, Lebanon — Syrian military helicopters dropped barrels packed with explosives in the government’s latest air raids on rebel-held areas of the northern Syrian city of Aleppo on Saturday, killing at least 23 people, including a family trapped in a burning car, activists said.

In neighboring Lebanon, a car bomb blew up near a gas station in a Shiite town, killing at least three people, in the latest attack linked to the war in Syria.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/02/world/middleeast/syrian-helicopters-drop-barrel-bombs-on-aleppo.html – 2/1/2014.

Ahmad al-Hamoud, Vice Commander of Ahfad Hamza Battalion for Special Missions, al-Sultan al-Fatih Brigade, told VDC that many kinds of the barrel bombs used by the regime forces had been recognizable. These included:

1- Regular Russian-made Barrels. These are believed to have been used by the Russian Army in the middle of the previous century. They were brought from Russia ‘ready to use’. The regime has owned them for decades. Their weight ranges between 300 to 500 kg and they’re filled with TNT and metallic scraps. There’re extremely destructive, yet their range is more limited than that of the other kinds.

2- Medium Destruction Barrels. These are believed to be made by the regime in ‘Defense Factories’ in al-Safira, in the Valley of al-Waha. Most of the helicopters taking off from this valley dropped these barrels on the districts of Aleppo. The weight of these barrels ranges from 400 to 500 kg.

3- Highly Destructive Barrels. These are the most dangerous and destructive of all. Weighing more than 600 kg, they take many shapes like containers, cisterns and, in some cases, green rubbish containers.

“A Special Report on the Recent Air Attacks on Aleppo: Potential Death Falling from the Sky…: Violation Documentation Center in Syria, March 2014.  Note: graphic forensic photographs included in the report.

Posted to YouTube 2/24/2015.

Source: https://www.hrw.org/news/2015/02/24/syria-new-spate-barrel-bomb-attacks – 2/24/2015.

Barrel bombs are improvised weapons: oil drums or similar canisters filled with explosives and metal fragments. They are dropped without guidance from helicopters hovering just above antiaircraft range, typically hitting the ground with huge explosions and the widespread diffusion of deadly shrapnel. They pulverize neighborhoods, destroy entire buildings and leave broad strips of death and destruction.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/06/opinion/barrel-bombs-not-isis-are-the-greatest-threat-to-syrians.html – 8/5/2015

http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2015/07/bombs-kill-dozens-syria-aleppo-150713131000494.html – 7/13/2015

http://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/aljazeeraworld/2015/03/150325072934200.html – 3/25/2015 – “Death of Aleppo”.

Footage has emerged showing the Syrian regime using explosive “barrel bombs” on civilian neighbourhoods, killing hundreds, while its representatives attended peace talks at Geneva.

Filmed by activists in the southern Damascus suburb of Daraya, the ten minute video is a compilation of footage showing barrels, loaded with TNT, being dropped on the neighbourhood during the week the Geneva II conference was convened.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/syria/10618670/Syrian-military-drop-devastating-barrel-bombs-on-city.html – 2/5/2014.

Nongovernmental organizations researching and working in Syria, including Human Rights Watch and the Syrian Civil Defense, testified during the meeting. Staffan de Mistura, the United Nations special envoy on Syria, said in a video message that the Syrian government is responsible for the use of barrel bombs and that at the rate the weapons are being used, there won’t be any civilians left in Syria.

http://www.newsweek.com/united-nations-assads-barrel-bombs-continue-kill-syrian-civilians-347782 – 6/27/2015.

Government forces and pro-government militia continue to conduct widespread attacks on civilians, systematically committing murder, torture, rape and enforced disappearance as crimes against humanity. Government forces have committed gross violations of human rights and the war crimes of murder, hostage-taking, torture, rape and sexual violence, recruiting and using children in hostilities and targeting civilians in sniper attacks. Government forces disregarded the special protection accorded to hospitals, medical and humanitarian personnel and cultural property. Aleppo was subjected to a campaign of barrel bombing that targeted entire areas and spread terror among civilians. Government forces used incendiary weapons, causing superfluous injury and unnecessary suffering, in violation of international humanitarian law. Indiscriminate and disproportionate aerial bombardment and shelling caused large-scale arbitrary displacement. Government forces and pro-government militia perpetrated massacres.

Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights.  “Report of the independent international commission of inquiry on the Syrian Arab Republic.”  Human Rights Council, 25th Session, Agenda Item 4, February 12, 2014.

http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2015/06/barrel-bomb-attacks-syria-aleppo-reported-150622175005995.html – 6/22/2015

While the Assad opposition masks off its own excesses, and, as always in the Islamic Small Wars, it’s hard “seeing” who is fighting exactly for what and how they’re doing it, warrior band by band, and sometimes person by person, there are no doubts as regards the smashing of large business, education, religious, and residential areas packed with noncombatant Syrians.

As Syrian Muslim and Jewish relationships develop — a perhaps “unheard of” now heard of — and Syrian anti-Semitism and anti-westernism comes more into focus as one impediment among several to western intercession, the scales may tip in the direction of the cosmopolitan and modern and therefore away from the medieval worldview that forms the basis for the despotism displayed by Putin, Assad, and Khamenei on the Shiite axis and al-Nusra and ISIS and others on the Sunni complement that serves the former as foils for the cooked up theatrical “Assad vs The Terrorists”.

In Syria, the center could not hold and the rough beast rose to savage the land.

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Link – Operating in the Good Old Red (Brown)

14 Thursday May 2015

Posted by in 21st Century Feudal, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Politics, Russia, Syndicate Red Brown Green

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In reacting to Russia’s annexation of Crimea and support for pro-Russian separatists in Ukraine in early 2014, the US government did not call the Sixth Fleet into action; it did not ban all exports to Russia; it did not stop all cultural and educational exchanges. Rather, key elites close to “a senior Russian government official”—President Vladimir Putin—were targeted with asset seizures and visa bans.

Probably the most serious international crisis since the end of the Cold War, and the White House targets individuals? It seemed an odd response to some observers. But it made sense. At last, after 14 years of dealing with Putin as a legitimate head of state, the US government has finally acknowledged that he has built a system based on massive predation on a level not seen in Russia since the czars. Transparency International estimates the annual cost of bribery in Russia at $300 billion, roughly equal to the entire gross domestic product of Denmark, or many times higher than the Russian budgetary allocations for health and education. Capital flight totaled $335 billion from 2005 to 2013, or about 5 percent of GDP. But then in 2014, with the ruble and oil prices tumbling, it reached more than $150 billion—a figure that has swollen Western bank coffers but made Russia the most unequal of all economies, in which, according to Credit Suisse, 110 billionaires control 35 percent of the country’s wealth.

Dawisha, Karen.  “The Putin Principle: How it Came to Rule Russia.”  World Affairs, May/June 2015.

Red.  Brown.  Green.

Fascist.

Lawless.

Thieving.

And getting away with it!

There’s now plenty of BackChannels opinion on “Syndicate Red Brown Green”, a clever collection of books (in the “The Russian Section” of the library), but no prescriptions and not much hope for those in the Russian oppositions being ground away or controlled for irrelevance by the “Vertical of Power”.   The states of affairs may be ascertained swiftly with a glance at the web sites of well known critics.

Alexey Navalny

Gary Kasparov

Mikhail Kodorkovsky

Let BackChannels know when the outlook of each brightens.

The report, titled Putin. War, asserts that at least 150 Russian military personnel were killed during a Ukrainian offensive in August 2014. A further 70 — including 17 paratroopers from the city of Ivanovo — were reportedly killed during fighting near the bitterly contested town of Debaltseve in January and February.

Families of those killed in 2014 were given 2 million rubles ($39,000) by the government in exchange for signing a promise not to discuss the matter publicly, the report claims.

Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty.  “Nemtsov Reports Says More Than 200 Russian Soldiers Killed in Ukraine.”  May 14, 2015.

Gratuitous.

Posted to YouTube July 2013.

The great forces today are not in the “masses” or the “voting public” but in the construction and intentions of “adventurous governments” and otherwise integrated and stable ones.  Among the “adventurous”: Putin, Assad, Khamenei, Orban, Erdogan, among others; “integrated and stable”: the classically liberal democracies of the world.  The figure of “Everyman” shrugs before, sometimes beneath, these altogether large forces.

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Link – Erdogan and Putin – WaPo

23 Friday Jan 2015

Posted by in Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Links, Political Psychology, Politics

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Yet these underlying differences have rarely turned into public disputes. As a report by the Moscow Carnegie Center put it, Russia and Turkey “have largely managed to compartmentalize their relations.” That’s down to pragmatism and realpolitik. But the similarities between the two countries’ leaders are hard to miss. Here are some reasons why Putin and Erdogan could look to each other, and find a kindred spirit.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2014/12/02/how-russias-putin-and-turkeys-erdogan-were-made-for-each-other/ – 12/2/2014.

Putin-Assad-Khamenei.

Putin-Orban.

Putin-Erdogan.

It’s a club.

Affinity between dictators constitutes a revanch feudalist theme in contemporary foreign affairs.  Central to each: the rejection of classical liberal values and the embrace of unsavory methods in their political life plus the pursuit of grandiose ambitions perhaps associated with a giantism suited to immortality.

Russia, Syria, Iran, Hungary, and Turkey may not be doing gangbusters as states — from from it — but as gangsters set up in palaces or commanding immense portfolios on top of much unsung suffering, they’re at the top of their game.

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Navalny and Putin’s Pivot

31 Wednesday Dec 2014

Posted by in Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Political Psychology, Politics, Psychology, Russia

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. . . Alexei Navalny was found guilty of what activists said were trumped-up charges and given a suspended sentence of 3½ years. His younger brother was sent to prison, a move that drew comparisons to the Stalin-era practice of punishing family members of enemies of the state.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/putin-foe-arrives-at-court-to-hear-verdict/2014/12/30/c5557cde-8feb-11e4-a66f-0ca5037a597d_story.html?tid=hybrid_1.1_default_strip_2 – 12/30/2014.

“Putler” has become a popular term.

There’s even a snarky Facebook group built around it.

For two or three reasons, I would not go so far as to permanently and seriously conflate Russia’s president with the little guy with the mustache in Germany.

For one thing, Russia’s own internal saboteur works from a very different space in political time, and he’s both engaged and surrounded by the world free of dictatorship, which at the moment is shunning his best buddies and diminishing revenues from his state’s easiest money.

Moreover, the colonel president emperor may be operating also with internal controls and desires quite different from Adolph’s, the piratical motive combined with domestic aggrandizement being already well established and far out ahead of the want of the headaches attending imperial designs.

He knows too that while the plundering of Russia by its “Vertical of Power” and the approximately 110 multi-billionaire “oligarchs” who control about 35 percent of the state’s productive capacity may be stalled by a flooded oil market responding to the misadventure in Ukraine, responsibility today for the the essential criminality of the state — in Luke Harding’s words, the “Mafia State” — reverse engineers to himself, the only man at the top, and he’s the only figure capable of reversing its course.

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We need to learn to respect ourselves.

We need to look at this important notion such as reputation and that reputation of a specific hospital, school, institution, or social office is a building stone in the overall reputation of our country . . . .

https://conflict-backchannels.com/2014/12/10/goodbye-potemkin-quotation-vladimir-vladimirovich-putin/ – 12/10/2014.

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“We all understand that the sources of assets are different, that they were earned or acquired in various ways. However, I am confident that we should finally close, turn the ‘offshore page’ in the history of our economy and our country. It is very important and necessary to do this.”

http://www.thefiscaltimes.com/2014/12/05/Putin-Urges-Oligarchs-Criminals-Bring-Dirty-Money-Back-Russia#sthash.lV0PJItd.dpuf – 12/5/2014.

The sentiments expressed in the speech follow action taken earlier in the year:

On the 18th of March the Russian Ministry of Finance published a draft law on anti-offshore measures. Following wide public discussion, a revised draft was published on the 27th of May.

The draft introduces four key concepts, namely, controlled foreign companies (CFC) rules; Russian tax residence for foreign companies, based on tests of management and control; concepts of ‘factual right to income’ and ‘beneficial owner’ in the context of applying international tax treaties; and new rules on taxation of the indirect disposal of Russian real estate.

https://www.accountancylive.com/russian-taxman-sets-sights-offshore-wealth – 6/19/2014.

Apply: “For my friends, everything!  For my enemies, the law!”

Putin may be making some new “frenemies” about now as he at one turn coaxes the return of capital to Moscow and determines, perhaps, to build from it a new modern domestic economy — and at the other, in days to come, woe to the holdouts who may be made to face the latest in law promulgated by the Ministry of Finance.

The haunt of old Joe may spook the careers of both Vladimir Putin and Alexei Navalny: he’s the ghost representing a past to which no one should wish to return. In fact, Kruschev trashed it; Gorbachov nearly buried it; but the KGB and associates have revived it just enough to suit themselves grandly.

The present neo-feudal Russian security dictatorship may have a problem in just not really wanting to be what it is, i.e., politically criminal, a Russian domestic disaster, a financial Chernobyl, a billboard for the expression of malignant, unbridled, and ruthless narcissism.

While Navalny appears to threaten the power that is, he may also stand as the one first most reliable channel marker out of the kind of hell that attends the psychology in personality of the same.

Perhaps for Russians as a whole the journey contained in the homily “you can’t go home again” has of necessity involved a deep revisitation through Putin with the near histories of feudalism and communism, a two steps back toward the revival of 19th Century aristocracy and 20th Century socialist fascism that has reliably, inevitably, recalled to mind the excesses and miseries attending both.

In that light, the regime may know that Navalny needs to be a part of the Russia to come, that he’s part of the self respect to come — a sentiment mouthed into necessity by the president — and that playing with him with the familiar tools of dictatorship might be just the simplest way of telling him to wait his turn: his better day will come.

Additional Reference

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2878820/Russia-s-oligarchs-lose-5-5bn-48-HOURS-amid-economic-turmoil-Roman-Abramovich-owner-Arsenal-billionaires-losing-vast-amounts-cash.html – 12/18/2014.

http://blogs.ft.com/the-world/2014/12/putin-treats-russias-oligarchs-to-a-free-supper/ – 12/19/2014.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Russian_people_by_net_worth

http://www.forbes.com/sites/frederickallen/2012/07/23/super-rich-hide-21-trillion-offshore-study-says/

Credit Suisse said that there were hopes with the demise of the Soviet Union that Russia would turn into a high skilled economy with fair wealth distribution but “this is almost a parody of what happened in practice.”

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/10/09/russia-wealth-inequality_n_4070455.html – 10/9/2013.

Also On Facebook

#No Mistral for Putin

Also on BackChannels

https://conflict-backchannels.com/2014/12/10/goodbye-potemkin-quotation-vladimir-vladimirovich-putin/ – 12/10/2014.

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Goodbye Potemkin – Quotation – Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin –

10 Wednesday Dec 2014

Posted by in Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Politics, Russia

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Dear colleagues, health care, education, social support, social security must become issues of true public good, true public value. They need to serve our entire society.

We cannot imitate education.

We cannot imitate health care or social security.

We cannot imitate caring for people.

We need to learn to respect ourselves.

We need to look at this important notion such as reputation and that reputation of a specific hospital, school, institution, or social office is a building stone in the overall reputation of our country . . . .”

Video Source of Transcription: YouTube: “Putin’s 2014 Federal Assembly Address in Full.”  Posted December 4, 2014.

Official Transcript: Presidential Address to the Federal Assembly, December 4, 2014.

Official Transcript Passage:

Education, healthcare, and the social welfare system should become a true public benefit and serve all citizens of the country. Attention to the people cannot be faked. You cannot simulate teaching, medical assistance or social care. We have to learn to feel respect for ourselves and honour reputation. It’s the reputation of individual hospitals, schools, universities and social institutions that form the country’s overall reputation.

Mama NATO may withstand some kvetching as and if President Putin makes good on this pivotal gambit to now transform around his “vertical of power” a breathtaking neo-feudal oligarchy into a rule-of-law abiding and meritocratic capitalist social democratic society.

Are the wealthy up to this challenge?

You decide.

Related:

http://www.euronews.com/2014/12/10/russian-oligarch-usmanov-to-return-watson-s-auctioned-nobel-medal/ – 12/10/2014.

That’s pretty good advertising for $4.8 million, but there’s a long way to go on establishing a right way, and that way might include revisiting the politics attending 1) more than nine million Syrian refugees in a “show” (not really) designed to transform a modest revolution into a viciously polarized civil war, 2) the creation of a deeply anti-Semitic and nearly nuclear armed Iran, 3) a spiteful incursion into Crimea, Ukraine presenting itself as Russian nationalist fascism, and 4) perhaps some still post-Soviet meddling in the middle east (no one watching has missed Mikhail Bogdanov’s chat with the PFLP – nor missed the related murderous assault in a Jerusalem synagogue) as well as in Hungary where Viktor Orban has pursued an increasingly despotic course aligned with Putin’s outlook.

Still, whether “imitate” or “simulate” was the verb invoked, the want of integrity, of observable-measurable progress, and the want of a good reputation (on top of the bad assed one) seems to have found a place at the top on Russia’s public agenda.

Referenced video (1:09:46):

 Reference on BackChannels

“Putin in the Mirror – Shards from the World Wide Web.”  December 4, 2014.

“Quote – Manipulation – About the PLO Leader – Pacepa and Rychlak (2013).

Additional Reference

http://foreignpolicy.com/2014/11/06/hungary-is-helping-putin-keep-his-chokehold-on-europes-energy/ – 11/6/2014.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2014/12/04/why-putin-says-crimea-is-russias-temple-mount/ – 12/4/2014

The Russian government strives to paint the current Ukrainian government as fascist, to justify their aggression in Ukraine. In fact, when synagogues in Odessa were covered with Nazi graffiti, it was the leader of the Right Sector who joined the Rabbi in painting over the offensive marks.

Also during his lecture, English showed a photo of a man with a swastika on a sign and a flag, to show how many Nazis are in Ukraine. But the flag was not a Ukrainian flag, it was the flag of the pro-Russian separatists of Donetsk.

http://missoulian.com/news/opinion/columnists/lecture-on-ukraine-full-of-russian-propaganda/article_e2869a24-fae5-51ae-9662-e96211cfdaab.html – 12/9/2014.

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FTAC – Malignant Leaders – Anti-Semites – Fascists

08 Monday Dec 2014

Posted by in Anti-Semitism, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, FTAC - From The Awesome Conversation, Politics

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Each malign leadership personality — Assad, Erdogan, Khamenei, Orban, Mobarak, Morsi, Putin, Yanukovych, etc. — makes himself also an independent actor in his own right as well as one bickering or cooperating with fellow dictators in the context of pursuing or sustaining “political absolutism”, i.e., themselves as the sole power of their feudal estates. In place of a decent politics, which cannot be had with any playing out this kind of script in personality (all are emperors), come only a limited practical politics — carrots, sticks, and horse swaps.

Internally, “patronage” fits in infantilization and dependency inducing behavior that is itself a part of a defeating spectrum of controls – blackmail, intimidation, incarceration, and murder on one hand, and kind approvals of the powerful, financial patronage, sweet and seductive lying — which in the dark mirrors of the evil includes the promotion of anti-Semitic libel and promise of violence against the Jews — on the other. All such leaders regardless of “nominal affiliation”: thieves. They mask what they really do — and what they are really all about (power over others without limit) — beneath their various banners, but they are also much the same person.

To be fair, Putin, who has been pro-Semitic in public, and whose state has some relations with Israel, should not be considered anti-Semitic despite the inherent anti-Semitic legacies of the old Soviet communism and the Russian Orthodox Church or portions of the same (untangling Russian history after what the Soviets did to it, lol, at least according to Pacepa and Rychlak, will take some time — in the meantime, I feel like I’ve just glimpsed a conciliatory Russian Orthodox Church by way of first encounter with a few voices associated with it).

As I type (and gather from the web as I do), this article may have some clues as to how modern new modern Russians may be as Putin continues on a revanchist neo-feudal path:

Benevitch, Gregory.  “The Jewish Question in the Russian Orthodox Church.”

Some wake up knowing we are all “in it” together.

🙂

Related:

According to Oleg Usenkov, press secretary of the Sophia association of Russian Orthodox Christians in the Holy Land, there are about 70,000-100,000 Russian Orthodox Israelis, and perhaps “the real figures are even higher.”1The number is significant, as the “Greek Orthodox Patriarchy of Jerusalem was informed by the Ministry of Immigrant Absorption that approximately 10 percent of the total Aliya from the former Soviet Union are of the Christian Orthodox faith.”2 This makes the Orthodox Church by far the largest among the past several decades of Israeli immigrants.3 It is also the largest among Palestinian Christians, of whom there are about 400,000 worldwide, and through whom it traces itself to the first Christian community.4

Smith, Hal.  “Is the Orthodox Church ‘Supersessionist'”? Orthodoxy Today, October 17, 2013.

Even while positioning Russia as anti-western, Putin nonetheless and recently laid out toward the end of his most recent Federation speech a familiar western cant:

Transcribed:

Dear colleagues, health care, education, social support, social security must become issues of true public good, true public value. They need to serve our entire society.

We cannot imitate education.

We cannot imitate health care or social security.

We cannot imitate caring for people.

We need to learn to respect ourselves.

We need to look at this important notion such as reputation and that reputation of a specific hospital, school, institution, or social office is a building stone in the overall reputation of our country . . . .”

If that ain’t modern and “western” — how about civilized? — what is?

The World Wide Web is the largest lens and mirror ever devised for having a look at other cultures and nations and for seeing how one’s own culture and nation looks in return.

The combines of old communist and fascist puppet masters should not fare well online, but as regards gravitational effects on “information space” and “intellectual resources” worldwide, some are trying like mad to get the world and have the world back as they would wish it to be.

As a guy with a library — and a “19th Century Modern” attitude — I’ve much enjoyed looking over the palaces of the obscenely enriched by politics, but one might look forward to an other than revolutionary reversion to rule of law and redistribution of wealth as capital driven back down to the floors of economies where cash is needed and a new engineering may come into view on a global stage.

The age of creating and sustaining breathtaking deceits?

Let it end.

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Putin in the Mirror – Shards from the World Wide Web

04 Thursday Dec 2014

Posted by in Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Russia

≈ 2 Comments

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“The gunmen were armed quite seriously, they had everything they needed in their arsenal including machine guns and grenade launchers,” Kadyrov said in an interview on the radio station Echo of Moscow. He added that authorities had been expecting an attack and were prepared, though the assault was anticipated for Dec. 12, Russia’s Constitution Day.

http://www.latimes.com/world/europe/la-fg-grozny-terrorist-attack-20141204-story.html

(Posted to YouTube by RT 12/4/2014)

Yanukovych Leaks

Putin’s Russia – Miami University, Havighurst Center, Russian & Post-Soviet Studies

Pacepa, Ion Mihai and Rychlak, Ronald J.  Disinformation.  Washington, D.C.: WND Books, 2013.

Kundera, Milan.  The Book of Laughter and Forgetting.  Michael Henry Heim, translator.  New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1981.

It isn’t simply that “the struggle of man against power is the struggle of memory against forgetting,” as the novel’s most famous line has it. Kundera was showing us not only how one major event sweeps away another, but just how hard it is to remember at all, how disorienting to our own point of view and sense of time it is to try to follow what is going on around us.

http://6thfloor.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/04/18/remembering-and-forgetting-milan-kundera/ – 4/18/2011 – essay authored by Aaron Retica.

In retaliation for losing Ukraine in the Russian-dominated CIS, Putin seized control of Crimea after a bogus referendum in which 97 percent of the population allegedly voted. The same thing was about to happen in the heavily Russian populated East of Ukraine but halted due to International Sanctions.

Hillstead, Justin.  “Russia is the only country at fault in the Ukraine conflict.” Euromaidan Press, November 27, 2014.

Corruption is a major obstacle to doing business in Russia, and petty corruption is common. The business environment suffers from inconsistent application of laws and lack of transparency in public administration. The public procurement sector is notoriously corrupt, with fraud related to government tenders costing the state billions of dollars each year.

 http://www.business-anti-corruption.com/country-profiles/europe-central-asia/russia/snapshot.aspx – September 2014.

Corruption claims related to the 2018 Russia and 2022 Qatar World Cups have been circulating. In mid-November, FIFA cleared Qatar and Russia of any wrongdoing following an in-depth report by Michael Garcia, FIFA’s leading U.S. investigator and chairman of the investigatory chamber of the FIFA Ethics Committee. After FIFA cleared both nations, Garcia slammed the organization for not properly representing the facts. FIFA is once more reviewing his report.

http://www.newsweek.com/sony-drops-fifa-sponsorship-amid-corruption-scandal-288443 – 12/1/2014.

Navalny on Putin’s citing corruption in Russia’s defense sector now and back in 2012. (In Russian, machine translated here).

Inexplicably, President Zeman called on his EU and NATO partners to accept Russia’s annexation of Crimea on the grounds that the 1954 decree that transferred the region to Ukraine was “stupid.” He went on Russian television and denounced the sanctions as counterproductive. As far as the fighting in eastern Ukraine was concerned, Zeman argued, the West had no right to interfere since it was a civil war.

Lukes, Igor.  “Prague’s velvet: wearing off 25 years later.”  The Conversation, December 4, 2014.

Igor Luke’s piece fits with BackChannel’s own observations about despotic power (e.g., “Putin-Assad-Khamenei”) and drifts toward it (e.g., “Putin-Orban”) and explanations for the same developed in the books listed in the “Russian Section” of this blog’s incredible library.

I started this post close to the start of Putin’s address (in the above RT video) and may have 30 minutes left before the same draws to a close.  🙂  The Russian President’s emphasis returning capital flight from Russia and developing technology may correspond both to sanctions and reduced oil prices as well perhaps to either desire (that would be nice) or the purchase of time (more likely, chatyping here as a skeptical blogger) to continue developing neo-feudal nationalism and avenues of export for it in eastern Europe.

With loose reference here to political psychology, one may apply the notion that autocrats understand one another better than they do their natural enemies: democratic modern socialists and open society humanists.  Still, as I listen to Putin’s translator – about 56 minutes in — and remarks about population and health care, the turn westward (don’t tell him!) is unmistakable.  Inside of two minutes (and a little more), capitalization, equality, health care, economic and industrial forecasting, education and training, human development and achievement have been injected into the address.

Will Putin — and the oligarch super billionaires, all 110 or thereabouts — walk the turnaround talk?

Transcribed:

Dear colleagues, health care, education, social support, social security must become issues of true public good, true public value.  They need to serve our entire society.  

We cannot imitate education.

We cannot imitate health care or social security.

We cannot imitate caring for people.

We need to learn to respect ourselves.

We need to look at this important notion such as reputation and that reputation of a specific hospital, school, institution, or social office is a building stone in the overall reputation of our country . . . .”

If Putin’s neo-feudal and vertical-around-the-power inner circle, nomenklatura, and FSB turn about to embrace integrity and place it in value one step above loyalty — now that will take courage! — well, hell, I’d campaign and vote for him!

*

Psychology treats persons in part in their capacity as problems unto themselves, never mind their effects on others — everyone may need help, but there’s just one patient and experience of mind at a time.

Political psychology by definition needs must deal with both the vagaries of personality and the social organization of the same.  By inference, we may expect the individual reprobate to consider and find a way of cleaning up his act and at practically any cost: as much becomes for a person an ethical, moral, and spiritual matter, a matter between himself and God or himself, history, nature, and time.

That is man confronting himself and how that story goes matters most to himself.

Putin’s reflection, as I am listening to it, involves the society he has created around himself, and that society has displaced immense wealth from the Russian people: will the owners of the state now return their stakes and set off the process of redistribution down through a new meritocratic Russia?

Noblesse oblige?

It might work.

One notices with people that efforts to improve in one area often yield improvements in other areas as well.

Best advice (if anyone’s reading): draw down the curtain on political theater.  Locally.  Globally.

Become real.

And please stop entertaining the PFLP, using the middle east to distract from eastern Europe, and much else that confuses intimidation, pandering, and patronage — and the fuller suite of degrading, demeaning, and dehumanizing methods — with legitimate power.

Remember what you said: you cannot imitate education, healthcare or social security, or caring for people.

I’ll add my two cents: you cannot imitate integrity either.

Take your time, for time has time in abundance for change.

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