Category: PUTIN DERANGEMENT SYNDROME

Those Horrible Russians are Winning the Information War: So we gotta ban them

On By Patrick ArmstrongIn PROPAGANDA, LIES AND NONSENSE, PUTIN DERANGEMENT SYNDROME, WAR ON RUSSIA

http://russia-insider.com/en/media-criticism/those-horrible-russians-are-winning-information-war/ri830

Russia’s unconventional war on Ukraine is being fought with weapons, with economics—and with an unprecedented disinformation campaign now being waged across online forums, airwaves and media sites across Europe. Through the manipulation of facts and the integration of outright lies into mainstream narratives, the Russian government seeks to influence public opinion and shape Western policy. In conversation with Anne Applebaum, Director of the Legatum Institute’s Transitions Forum, the panellists examined why these tactics are working, how they could undermine European democracy and what can be done about it.

I read this, and I just wanted to weep. Despite 2 million Google hits for “Russian aggression in Ukraine” and 4 million (plus images) for “Putin evil”, and 56 (56!) million for “Russian lies”, we (the Good Guys, that is) are being pasted in the information war with those Russian liars.

And to make all this still weirder – Applebaum & Co claim that they speak The Truth, which is commonly thought to be stronger than lies.

But still the few noble Truth-tellers (like Applebaum – PS, speaking about truth, did she tell you she is the wife of Poland’s former Foreign Minister and NATO GenSec hopeful?) have to struggle against the Russian Anti-Truth Media Lies and Falsification Campaign that is winning hearts and minds everywhere and can only be stopped by banning it altogether. Sometimes freedom can only be free by being unfree. Or something. Anyway, we gotta shut down these lying liars.

So Applebaum & Co want us to believe that although there are umpteen Western media outlets which are, day and night, 24/7, pumping out The Truth – BBC, CBC, CNN, Fox, AFP, Reuters and so on and on – thousands and thousands of hairstyles on TV earnestly explaining that it’s all Putin’s fault – day and night on every TV channel, every newspaper – NYT, WaPo, National Tubby, Times, Guardian, Der Spiegel – that, somehow (ah those insidious Russians!) the effort is failing. This gigantic effort is for naught.

Somehow in Applebaum’s universe (despite the fact that half the West’s newspapers have an oped by her explaining that it’s all Putler’s (Putler hasn’t quite caught on: only about 200K hits) fault every Sunday (41 thousand hits for “applebaum op ed”) lonely old RT beats them all in penetrating the Western Hive Mind Target.

But RT just pumps out lies (34 million hits on “RT lies”) cooked up in Putler’s demented brain (1 million hits on “Putin sucks”).

What a load of self-serving propagandistic nonsense.

How stupid do Applebaum and her minions think we are?

I mean to say:

HOW STUPID DO THEY THINK WE ARE?

Readings Into Putin

On By Patrick ArmstrongIn PROPAGANDA, LIES AND NONSENSE, PUTIN DERANGEMENT SYNDROME, WORLD POWER RELATIONSHIPS

http://us-russia.org/1734-readings-into-putin.html

The reaction to Putin’s essay in the New York Times shows how preconceptions can overwhelm reality. Because so many op-ed writers and politicians knew what Putin really meant, they didn’t pay much attention to what he actually said. Seeing Putin as an enemy, they failed to notice the obvious. If Putin really was the enemy they think he is, he would be delighted to see the USA mired in an incoherent military intervention – “limited”, “shot across the bow”, “unbelievably small” but not “pinpricks” – with a vacillating leadership, opposed by two-thirds of its population, probably its legislature and most of the world and with no allies to speak of. Something that could only weaken the USA. On the contrary, he extracted the USA from this future.

The themes in his essay are ones with which Putin-watchers are familiar, the central one being “The United Nations’ founders understood that decisions affecting war and peace should happen only by consensus”. In short, there is a set of international norms and rules to govern the use of armed force that have more-or-less worked for years. It is gravely weakened when “influential countries bypass the United Nations and take military action without Security Council authorization”.

Who could deny that? Whatever one may think of the effectiveness of the UN, so long as one does not renounce it altogether – and Washington has not – then Putin is correct. Moscow has, of course, a strong self interest in preserving the UNSC but that does not make Putin’s defence of it stupid or wrong.

Putin believes that a US strike on Syria: “would increase violence and unleash a new wave of terrorism”; Moscow is a proponent of the status quo; things can get worse. He reminds us that the overthrow of Khadafy spread trouble into Mali; they did get worse. He maintains that the fighting in Syria has nothing much to do with “democracy”. He reiterates for the nth time that Moscow is “not protecting the Syrian government, but international law.” And that Moscow has many times called for talks without preconditions and blocked Washington’s demand that Assad must go first (how can you expect to have talks if the victor is pre-assigned)?

Some have taken contemptuous disagreement with his belief that it was not Assad that used poison gas. These people should speak more carefully: German intelligence is apparently doubtful, US intelligence is hardly certain either. Putin’s belief is not, therefore, outrageous.

So, familiar themes: the UNSC must be upheld (note that he nowhere suggests that it is perfect, just that it is all the world has today); intervention in a horrible civil war is not likely to make anyone happy and the USA’s behaviour is making it be seen as a bully. Altogether his remarks are unremarkable. Or would be, had they come from the Dalai Lama, the Pope, or, come to think of it, Senator Obama a few years ago. But, because people know that Putin is an enemy, a dictator, a hypocrite, they know that what he is saying is… well, let us consider an incoherent piece in The New Yorker: despite the fact that Putin repeats points “made in good faith by American and Europe opponents of air strikes” it’s only “mendacity” and “hypocrisy”. So, even when Putin speaks the truth, he’s lying. Finally this curious retort: “‘American exceptionalism’ was Moscow’s idea. So quit complaining, Vladimir.”

But what seems to have made some Americans want to vomit was this paragraph: “It is alarming that military intervention in internal conflicts in foreign countries has become commonplace for the United States. Is it in America’s long-term interest? I doubt it. Millions around the world increasingly see America not as a model of democracy but as relying solely on brute force…”. Or that he questions “American exceptionalism”. But just what is “American exceptionalism” in this context? Washington can bomb anyone it wants? we must all go along with it when it does? the US is never wrong? only the US can criticise others ? what? And, anyway, how dare a thug like Putin lecture us!

The brutal truth is that the USA, in the person of its leaders, has looked ineffectual, confused, weak and alone. It was not Putin who did this. Putin in fact saved it from greater folly and that is hard to forgive. A real enemy would take delight in watching that train wreck develop. Instead Putin has given Obama a way out: perhaps not a “friend” but a concerned neighbour that would have to live with the results.

Even if the writers don’t get it, most of their readers seem to. The most recent three comments on The New Yorker piece at this time of writing are contrary to the author’s line: 1 “Is there any of you with enough humility to say the words THANK YOU to a world leader. Putin needs to receive a gift from the UNITED STATES.” 2 “Americans have had their nose put out of joint and received a lesson in -wait for it — rationality after the hysterical incoherence that has gripped the polity.” 3 “What is curious to me is what our own propaganda and actions looks like to the rest of the world? What does it look like to those countries when a President Bush lectures them? Or Obama?”

On the original NYT piece, the top three pick comments are: “Say what you will about the Russians and Mr. Putin in particular. This reaching out is unprecedented. Surly our country and our leaders cannot ignore this gesture from the Russian government.” The second one is rather scornful of Putin but the third is not: “Aside from the obviously specious claim that it was the rebels who used the gas, much of this post is thought provoking and has a tone of reasonableness that I find disturbing to my prejudices. What a crazy world we are living in when Russia sounds more sane and responsible than our own government on a serious international crisis”.

This disconnect shows a gap between Americans and their opinioneers and gives another example how pre-conceptions determine observation. And did we not see this before when the authorities ignored Moscow’s warnings about the Tsarnaev brothers? If you believe Putin is a thug then he has nothing to tell you and you don’t have to listen.

But it seems that few readers were fooled: opposition to involvement in the Syrian war was and is overwhelming; few supported Obama and his strikes; many are grateful to Putin for stopping another open-ended military operation.

As Putin pointed out, these “humanitarian interventions” not only are more complicated than expected (vide Somalia, Kosovo, Libya) but have unanticipated consequences. Whatever deficiencies the UN system has, it is better in most cases to operate within its creaky framework. Finally, Putin has a point: consider that Somalia had general UN support, Kosovo was agreed to by most of NATO, Libya by some of NATO and the putative Syria intervention by hardly anybody. It is becoming “commonplace”.

The Magnitsky Bill: The Sources of America’s Obsession with Russia

On By Patrick ArmstrongIn CONTRIBUTIONS TO GROUP DISCUSSIONS, PROPAGANDA, LIES AND NONSENSE, PUTIN DERANGEMENT SYNDROME, WAR ON RUSSIA

http://us-russia.org/594-the-magnitsky-bill-the-sources-of-americas-obsession-with-russia.html

http://english.ruvr.ru/experts4/

Why this bizarre American obsession about Russia – a power that truly is not very pertinent to Washington’s strategic and security concerns? Considering, for example, what Obama and Romney talked about in their foreign policy debate, we see that Moscow hardly featured. I’m perplexed and all I can offer in explanation is a jumble of partly-baked theories.

Perhaps lefties dislike Russia because it rejected socialism; indeed the Soviet experience stands as an indictment against the whole scheme. If you believe more government is the solution, or that equality is the answer, Russia’s rejection of the Soviet experiment is a standing rebuke to your convictions.

Righties dislike Russia because, communist or not (and how many think it still is?) it’s still Russia. But why should they dislike Russia per se? Apart from the communist period, Russia has never been very germane to American concerns – not, at least, since the Alaska Purchase. And yet, as David Foglesong has argued, many Americans were obsessed about Russia long before the Bolsheviks. Russia was then seen as a sort of backwards twin brother. But Americans had a long obsession with China too: all the missionaries, the “who lost China” excitement in the 1950s. Why Russia still?

Another notion is that Americans have to have a rival, an opponent, a counter, an enemy even. It’s geopolitical chiaroscuro: the light can only shine against the darkness. Russia is large, significant and gives a contrast more substantial than, say, Venezuela would. But, best of all, unlike China, US-Russia trade is pretty inconsequential. So Russia is a low-cost opponent. It’s safe to abuse Russia; abusing China comes with a cost.

In periodic American fits of moral censure, Russia is a safe target. An issue as trivial as Pussy Riot can be played up as a momentous moral outrage. On the other hand, any sustained condemnation of the treatment in Saudi Arabia of Shiites or Pakistani and Filipino servants would come with a cost. Outrage against Russian “occupation” of parts of Georgia is one thing; outrage about Chinese occupation of Tibet would be something else. It is always pleasing to illustrate one’s moral superiority by manifesting outrage against someone else’s moral imperfections but a target that can bite back would cost more than the transitory satisfaction of being among the Saved Remnant. Russia’s sins are a perfect fit: pleasing moral superiority without uncomfortable consequences.

Or is Russia an ungrateful child? In the 1990s there was much talk about US aid and advice reforming Russia, the “end of history” and all that. Russia was, evidently, on the edge of becoming “just like us”. But it didn’t and such back-sliding cannot be forgiven.

Or is Russia just one of those unfortunate countries whose fate it is to be explained by foreigners after a two-week visit? A palimpsest on which to write the presumptions you brought? Martin Malia wrote a fascinating book showing how Westerners from Voltaire onwards found Russia to be the perfect exemplar of whatever it was that they wished it to be. So, in Russia you can find whatever you’re looking for: a “geostrategic foe”, for example.

So abusing Russia satisfies many political needs: a safe opponent; a contrast that can be painted as dark as you like; an object of feel-good moral righteousness; a sullen teenager who won’t listen to Daddy; a blank slate on which to write.

But best of all, something like the “Magnitskiy Bill” feels good and it doesn’t cost anything much. The geopolitical equivalent of banning Big Gulps in New York City.

Putin’s Problems

On By Patrick ArmstrongIn POLITICS AND POWER, PUTIN DERANGEMENT SYNDROME

Note February 2016: I wrote this as a reply to a comment on something I’d written. My recollection now is that it was something along the lines that Putin  is only interested in power.

Your remark deserves a much longer answer (and you’ve made me think I should write something). In essence you’re suggesting that Putin talks a better game than he plays. There is, I think, some truth in this but I believe that there is a good explanation. And the point is to try and explain things, not to judge them.

Go back to the situation of Russia when Putin was handed the keys. We all know about the economic/social picture – pretty desperate, even hopeless – but consider the security situation.

Khattab and his jihadists had attacked Dagestan and Russia itself – something had to be done about that (and with Armed Forces that had shown themselves to be pretty ineffective). Billionaires who had stolen their money thought they owned the place and were buying politicians. Corruption was wall-to-wall and floor-to-ceiling especially in the regional governments. Regional govts were doing whatever they wanted. The central govt had no money. NATO was expanding happily away and had just arrogated to itself the right to decide who has a country and who doesn’t. I believe that Putin actually thought (lots of references in his speeches to this) that Russia was in danger of disappearing – breaking up in a catastrophic collapse. Scary times if you’re a patriotic Russian.

So his problem is how to get there from here. His answer was to centralise things and take it slowly. Not an unreasonable plan, especially given what had happened in the 1990s. He had no tail, was generally unknown in Moscow and was dropped right into it. So he centralised control where he thought it could be trusted (witness all the jobs he dumped on Ivanov) and controlled and moved slowly and carefully (see his replacement of Defence Minister – forgotten his name just now – and the head of Gazprom as an illustration of his management style). Gradually he replaced people (pretty successfully as it turned out) and got things back on an even keel.

Then enter the “coloured revolutions” which, as time goes on, look to be more and more faked by outside interference. He and his circle seemed to have feared that a similar CR was being prepared for Russia and he tightened some more. His suspicions and fears are not lessened by still more NATOX, absurd and hostile reporting in the West and so forth. Still scary times.

If you’ve been reading my stuff, you will know that for 3-4 years I have been saying that he tightened too much and his successor would have to loosen things. I believe Putin’s over-centralisation, however much sense it may have seemed to make ten years ago (not an immense period of time BTW in what is necessarily a long-term plan) is now getting in the way of modernisation. And I believe we are seeing — I believe we are seeing — an easing of this today – but it’s the same plan with the same team carrying it out. (Don’t forget that the schedule was derailed at least a year by two events: the international financial crisis and the Ossetia war).

I cannot emphasis too much that people should read his Russia at the turn of the Millennium. It’s all laid out there: 4 tasks 1) turn the economy around 2) reverse the fissiparous tendencies 3) improve Russia’s standing in the world 4) institute a rule of law (or at least a rule of rules).

He did pretty well on the first 3 but the 4th still eludes him (as he admitted in a speech a while ago).

BTW his remark that only democracy is intransient is, IMO, extremely profound.

Another BTW: for the first time in Russian history since Peter there are two cooperating centres of power in Russia. That’s a rather interesting thing. Very few commentators have worked that one out.

As to political competition it’s true there isn’t much. Do you recall the story that he begged Yavlinskiy to cooperate with the other liberals so that they could get into the Duma? You can’t make bricks without straw and the political landscape is pretty barren. As to civil society, it is slowly appearing but it’s slow. But he’s doing something here too, that hasn’t been noticed: see Charles Heberle’s account http://www.russiaotherpointsofview.com/2010/05/transforming-subjects-into-citizens-an-experiment-in-russia.html#more

Finally, here’s a little thought experiment. Let’s pretend that all the Moscow-based Western reporters had gone to St Petersburg to find out about this mysterious guy who had suddenly appeared at the top of the tree. And had found that he was the trusted deputy of Mayor Sobchak, one of the poster boys for the “new democratic Russia” and that Western businessmen had dealt with him many times and had high respect for him. Don’t you think that would have given a very different colour to the reporting over the next decade?

But, as I said, your question deserves a longer response, with support (too much written on Russia is simple assertion – that’s why I put in hyperlinks. I don’t make stuff up).

Early Thoughts on Litvinenko Case

On By Patrick ArmstrongIn ACCUSATIONS, PROPAGANDA, LIES AND NONSENSE, PUTIN DERANGEMENT SYNDROME

The initial story, which developed over a few weeks, was that Alexander Litvinenko, a former “spy” and opponent of Putin, met in a London sushi bar on 1 Nov 2006 with an Italian professor, Mario Scaramella, who had urgent information for him about the murder of the Russian reporter Anna Politkovskaya. Litvinenko returned home, became sick, was taken to hospital and died three weeks later from radiation poisoning. His last words were to accuse Putin of having had him killed. This story was widely disseminated in suspiciously similar wording. It, together with the murder of a Russian reporter Anna Politkovskaya in Moscow, has become woven into a story that Russian President Putin routinely has his opponents murdered. Some were more sceptical, but the January piece in the New Yorker magazine reiterates the thesis that Putin’s enemies tend to die suddenly. (Summaries of some of the UK and US reactions).

Russians are strongly irritated at the way the immediate consensus that Russia is run by a sort of Murder Inc has been accepted so uncritically. The more suspicious believe that the story is a consciously manufactured plot to defame Putin and Russia.

From the first reports, there were reasons to be sceptical of the initial story. 1) all the sources, Litvinenko himself, (and Tim Bell, a major British PR and advertising executive, who handled the publicity) were people who worked for Boris Berezovskiy (see below); 2) Litvinenko was known to be a very unreliable source; 3) Even if Putin were in the habit of murdering his opponents, there were many more profitable targets in London alone; 4) the death bed accusation appears to exist only in English, which Litvinenko’s widow said he “couldn’t really speak”, and was given out by Alexander Goldfarb, another Berezovskiy employee.

In 1997, while working in the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB), in a section providing protection services, Litvinenko met Berezovskiy; shortly after, he was fired from the FSB (after dramatically stating that his superiors had ordered him to murder Berezovskiy) and began working for him openly. He moved to the UK and eventually became a British citizen. He had made a career of dramatic accusations – murder plots against Berezovskiy; Putin was responsible for the apartment building explosions in Russia in 1999; Italian politician Romano Prodi is a Soviet agent; al Qaeda is a KGB plot; Putin is a pedophile. He was never able to produce any convincing proof of these accusations and few paid much attention to him. There is also a claim that he was short of money and trying to blackmail people.

No single point of the original story has stood up in subsequent revelations

  • Improbability – If Putin were in the habit of murdering his opposition, in London alone, there are three people who would be much higher on his list. Oleg Gordievskiy (one of the highest-ranking KGB officers ever to defect), Berezovskiy himself and Akhmed Zakayev (an apologist for the jihadists in Chechnya). And would he choose such a complicated means and assign the job to people inept enough to poison themselves?
  • Mario Scaramella, the man with whom he met in the sushi bar in the original story. 1) denied his information was connected with Politkovskaya’s death); 2) none of the universities he claims to be associated with have heard of him; 3) is today under arrest in Italy accused of giving false evidence on a case involving arms smuggling.
  • Polonium-210. Traces of polonium-210 were found all over London: in numerous hotels and offices and in Litvinenko’s home. Further traces were found corresponding to the movements of Dmitriy Kovtun (see below). In this connection, Berezovskiy’s statement in 2005 that the jihadists in Chechnya were close to building a nuclear weapon may be relevant (polonium can be used as a trigger). There is some evidence that Litvinenko was exposed to polonium-210 more than once. The material is, in fact, not that hard to obtain.
  • Islamic Jihadist connections. Litvinenko 1) converted to Islam shortly before his death; 2) the rebel forces in Chechnya awarded him their “highest decoration” – what had he done for them and where were his loyalties?
  • Boris Berezovskiy. Berezovskiy made a great deal of money in the Yeltsin years (when he was known as the “godfather of the Kremlin”) and was driven out of Russia by Putin because he violated Putin’s declaration that the shady billionaires from the Yeltsin period could keep their money so long as they stayed out of politics. Berezovskiy was granted asylum in the UK and has said that he is trying to overthrow Putin. Litvinenko was employed by Berezovskiy when he left the FSB; it appears that Berezovskiy kept him on a retainer but had recently cut it leaving him eager for money. Alexander Goldfarb, the source for much of the original story, who has been naively described as Litvinenko’s friend, is Berezovskiy’s “right hand”.
  • Lugovoy and Kovtun. Andrey Lugovoy is another former FSB officer who quit to work for Berezovskiy; apparently he had known Litvinenko for some years. Dmitriy Kovtun is an associate of his. They were some of the people with whom Litvinenko met on the fatal day and traces of polonium-210 have been found on aircraft and in Germany associated with Kovtun’s movements. Both were reportedly made sick, but have recovered.
  • Coverage. The media likes simple stories and that is what it was given in the beginning: brave opponent of Putin’s dictatorship murdered. As the story grew, with new characters, multiple appearances of polonium-210, Chechen connections, Scaramella’s arrest, it has become so complicated that media attention has wandered. But the simple story has lingered, and many people are not aware of the details that cast doubt on it.
  • The three most significant new facts are: 1) the jihadist connection; 2) the widespread traces of radiation; 3) several cases of sickness of the principals (especially the case of Scaramella who met Litvinenko before Litvinenko met Lugovoy and Kovtun). What this evidence fits best is a story of nuclear smuggling in which the principals managed to contaminate themselves and spread radiation traces wherever they went. Clearly, the mystery remains, but all new evidence makes the simple original hypothesis that Putin murdered an enemy less probable.

Note: Feb 2016. In February 2009 I added this introduction

The death of Alexander Litvinenko, a former low-level KGB agent and employee of Boris Berezovsky, created scandalous world press. Western media were quick to intimate that President Putin had orchestrated the death, quoting, among other things, a deathbed letter written in English despite the fact that Litvinenko’s English was poor. More astute commentators observed Litivinenko’s connections with jihadists in Chechnya and the fact that Polonium, the radioactive material that killed him, can be used in making nuclear weapons; this theory is strengthened by Litvinenko’s deathbed conversion to Islam. Others concentrate on the fact that every story – and many appeared to be later discarded – came from one of Berezovsky’s employees: the original statement that he was sick with thallium poisoning, the Scaramella connection and the famous deathbed accusation. Berezovsky has publicly stated that he would do anything to bring down Putin; if Litvinenko was trying to smuggle the material to his friends in Chechnya, then Berezovskiy successfully spun the story so as to do great damage to Putin. The murder remains unsolved, but Russian state involvement seems the least likely explanation today.

And this final point:

  • Last year, an American reporter, Edward Jay Epstein, actually visited Moscow to look at the evidence the British police had given the Russians to support their accusation of Lugovoy and came away very unconvinced: “After considering all the evidence, my hypothesis is that Litvinenko came in contact with a Polonium-210 smuggling operation and was, either wittingly or unwittingly, exposed to it.” His account summarises the case very well.