The Frame-Up of Vladimir Putin

The Frame-Up of Vladimir Putin

http://www.antiwar.com/justin/?articleid=9879

The Frame-Up of

Vladimir Putin 

There's no evidence that he ordered the murder of Anna Politkovskaya

by Justin Raimondo

The death of Anna Politkovskaya, a Russian journalist and avowed foe of Russian President Vladimir Putin, was the occasion for a veritable orgy of Russia-bashing, one that the Western media and their Russian teachers' pets lingered over with voluptuous abandon. Amid elegies praising Politkovskaya as a veritable saint and valorizing her opposition to the Chechen war were warnings from pundits and government officials alike that Russia – after a few bright years of promising openness – is descending into Slavic darkness. The clear implication of all this is that Politkovskaya's death, if not personally ordered by Putin, was certainly condoned and even celebrated by the Russian authorities.

Evidence? Who needs evidence? This crowd isn't interested in such bothersome details. They, after all, are the guardians of "human rights" in Russia. To expect these worthies to come up with such vulgar accouterments of the legal process as proof, witnesses, and credible testimony is to ask for the sun, the moon, and the stars in heaven. Their idea of evidence is the fact that Politkovskaya was killed on Putin's birthday. What more do we need to know? And, oh yeah, she was preparing a scathing exposé – with pictures – of torture carried out by the thuggish head of the pro-Russian puppet government in occupied Chechnya, portions of which were published posthumously.

That is their "proof" that Putin's was the deadly hand behind the assassin's bullet. In short, they have no evidence, not a shred of it, that points to Putin or anyone in his administration as masterminding the assassination. This embarrassing truth is carefully glossed over by the Western media, which is eager to portray Politkovskaya's death as emblematic of the re-Stalinization of Russian society.

A recent segment on PBS' NewsHour was typically credulous. After a sonorous buildup and introduction, in which PBS correspondent Jeffrey Brown solemnly portrayed Politkovskaya's death as the latest in an ongoing pogrom directed at journalists, he asked Nina Ognianova, of the Committee to Protect Journalists, "What more, if anything, is known at this point about who might have been behind this killing?"

Ognianova's shifty-eyed evasion had me laughing out loud:

"What we know is that Anna Politkovskaya was just about to release a report this Monday about alleged torture in Chechnya by the military services under the command of the Kremlin-appointed prime minister, Ramzan Kadyrov. Several reports in the Russian media said that Anna Politkovskaya was ready to release the material and was actually in possession of two photographs of the alleged torturers, but after her tragic death, the two photographs actually disappeared."

Brown didn't press her; instead, he mercifully changed the subject: "Tell us a little bit about her work over the years…"

Observant viewers will have noticed the complete lack of relevant facts in Ognianova's little narrative, which is all supposition and speculation. The rest are meant to be diverted from questioning this scenario by the sheer emotional power and inventiveness of the Putin-offed-Politkovskaya story: heroic journalist goes up against the neo-Stalinist regime of ex-KGB officer Putin, and pays for her scathing exposures of corruption and creeping authoritarianism with a bullet in the back of the head.

Truth no longer matters: objective reality is "out." That is a relic of the pre-9/11 era, clung to only by the beleaguered remnants of the "reality-based community." What counts, nowadays, is not who has the facts, but who has the winning narrative.

We are all by now overly familiar with this process: a campaign against the Hitler-of-the-moment is launched, amid much fanfare and fire-breathing, while "evidence" of his perfidy and deadly intentions saturates the media. In Iraq, we detected "weapons of mass destruction," links to al-Qaeda, and advanced preparations to nuke New Jersey via unmanned drone aircraft. In Russia, Putin is supposedly assassinating his critics, consolidating a dictatorship, and launching a bid to regain his nation's former empire. Russian revanchism resurgent – it's a meme with a nice ring to it, one that bears as much relation to reality as the Iraqi WMD con job. Not coincidentally, it's being pushed by the very same crowd.

That a noted journalist was killed, gangland-style, in today's Russia is hardly shocking. Corruption is rife in the former Soviet Union, and journalists who stumble on it – or are looking for it – are often, and not surprisingly, victimized by gangsters. To automatically attribute Politkovskaya's death to Putin or the Russian government is like blaming George W. Bush and his administration for every violent death in the District of Columbia.

Putin condemned the killing, and had this to say about her killers:

"We have information, and it is reliable, that many people hiding from Russian justice have long been nurturing the idea of sacrificing somebody in order to create a wave of anti-Russia feeling in the world."

Two exiled "oligarchs" – Russian billionaires who grew wealthy because of their political connections to the former Soviet dictatorship – are identified by Izvestia as among the possible suspects:

"The political theory has it that Politkovskaya's murder was ordered from abroad. We were the first to draw attention to this theory. A similar assumption was expressed by President Putin at a press conference in Dresden on October 10. Developments of this theory have mentioned the names of Boris Berezovsky and Leonid Nevzlin – the most prominent of the individuals Russia is trying to extradite. Both Berezovsky and Nevzlin will probably face extradition attempts for a long time to come, having to prove in foreign courts why they should not be returned to Russia. One of their primary objectives is to portray Russia as a state where people can get shot in the head for their pro-democracy convictions."

Boris Berezovsky, interviewed by phone from London, did not deny his desire for regime change:

"A revolution in Russia would certainly be to my advantage. But all my actions are within the law – especially since the Russian authorities are doing far more to destabilize the situation in Russia than I ever could. I had a difficult relationship with Anna Politkovskaya. At first, she directly accused me of instigating the war in Chechnya. But then she learned more about the situation and withdrew those accusations. I understood that her work was dangerous, but I didn't attempt to tell her what to do. Everyone chooses their own risks. Trying to stop her would have been futile."

Driven out of Russia by Putin's campaign to stamp out official corruption, the exiled oligarchs continue their activities abroad, and have hired platoons of public relations spinners to give them a makeover as "political dissidents." As Izvestia points out,

"Others besides Berezovsky and Nevzlin would also stand to benefit from 'correcting' Russia's image. Russia is also trying to extradite common criminals, who often argue in foreign courts that they're being persecuted for political reasons."

The drama of Politkovskaya's martyrdom at the hands of unknown assassins comes as Putin's relations with the West have reached a crescendo of hostility approaching Cold War levels. The flashpoints of the widening conflict – Ukraine, Georgia, and the Middle East – are all areas either in or bordering on the former "Soviet near abroad," the shattered remnants of the old Russian empire. The West, including the EU, is eager to absorb these broken-off pieces into its own sphere of political and economic influence. Bush's visit to Tbilisi on his way to Moscow for the summit was a clear signal that Washington was about to go on the offensive. The Georgians are pushing hard for NATO membership, and are busy antagonizing the Russians as best they can.

A vision of a Ukrainian-style "Orange Revolution" in Putin's Russia is the wet dream of Washington's professional regime-changers. These would-be exporters of Bushian "democracy" protest "human rights" violations in Chechnya and complain that Putin wants to be a dictator, yet they haven't said a word about the odious PATRIOT Act. They kvetch that Putin is the reincarnation of Stalin and wail crocodile tears over the alleged loss of civil liberties in Russia, but the passage of the Military Commissions Act [.pdf] and its signing into law by President Bush evinces not even a peep of protest from these inveterate crusaders for "human rights."

Freedom House, which rated Russia "not free" in its latest world survey, is strangely silent when it comes to the growing loss of liberty in the U.S., and it's no mystery as to why. These guys are on the U.S. government payroll: they get subsidies from the U.S. Treasury in order to promote "democracy" worldwide. "Democracy," in this context, means the installation of a compliant American sock-puppet, one who, like Georgian strongman Mikheil Saakashvili, knows what side his bread is buttered on. Never mind his atrocious "human rights" record: let's pretend, for the moment, that he isn't jailing his political opponents and intimidating the rest into silence. He is supported by the "pro-democracy" movement because weakening Russia, at all costs, is the primary goal of those who are handing out the cash.

As long as Russia was weak and ruled by the oligarchs, in league with their front man, Boris Yeltsin, it was treated like an ally, with plenty of aid to bail out the sinking Russian economy – which the oligarchs were bleeding to death – and lots of favorable media coverage for "Russia's emerging democracy." With the rise of Putin, a capable, no-nonsense, and staunchly nationalist leader, who wasn't about to take orders from abroad, American policy has shifted to containing and surrounding the Russian bear as he emerges from his decades-long hibernation, flush with vigor and plenty of petro-dollars. That's what the U.S.-subsidized-and-directed "color revolutions" were all about: that "fire in the mind" noted by both Dubya and Dostoevsky lit a blaze that stretched from Ukraine to Kyrgyzstan, but that flame has since sputtered out. Ukraine is veering back toward the Russian orbit, and the various Central Asian 'stans are moving in the same direction.

Russia has come a long way since the implosion of the Soviet Empire. Despite reversals – and copious foreign interference – it is making its way toward a market economy and the rule of law, albeit in fits and starts. Those who criticize Putin for supposedly reintroducing authoritarian rule can marshal not a single iota of evidence: opposition political parties exist and conduct vigorous public campaigns. No newspapers or media outlets have been closed down for giving voice to dissident anti-government views. They have changed owners, yes – but isn't that an essential characteristic of the market economy we are always urging on them? Russia has more political parties than the U.S., and the ballot-access laws are much more accommodating to dissident (or "third") parties. Yet Putin is supported by 70 percent of the voters: the "dissidents" are, for the most part, a handful of noisy, self-promoting professional malcontents, each of them competing for handouts from Uncle Sam.

Washington is now faced with a choice: it can get off Putin's back, recognize that he's an ally in the fight against the worldwide Islamist insurgency that threatens our homeland with terrorism, and butt out of his internal affairs – or it can escalate the war against the Kremlin. The oligarchs and their American allies are hoping – and lobbying furiously – for the latter. Common sense – do we really need to open up another front in our never-ending war against everyone? – and American interests argue in favor of the former. Given the record and past pronouncements of American policymakers from both parties, one needn't be Nostradamus to predict which way we'll go. A confrontation with Russia is the one crazed foreign policy blunder on which neocons and liberals, Republicans and Democrats, can all agree. As such, a new cold war with Russia seems almost inevitable, unless the American people suddenly wake up to this enormous con job and start demanding accountability from their leaders.

The frame-up of Vladimir Putin for the murder of Anna Politkovskaya is the latest chapter in an ongoing propaganda campaign that seeks to topple the Russian government and install a more pro-Western regime – one that won't send missiles to Syria, trade with Iran, or exercise its UN veto.

 

 

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My letter published today in Washington Times (Stella)

My letter published today in Washington Times (Stella)

http://www.washingtontimes.com/op-ed/20061015-101426-6014r_page2.htm

 

THE WASHINGTON TIMES

 

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
October 16, 2006

A falsified massacre story 

Suzanne Field's Op-Ed, "The Journalist and the jihadi," (Thursday) was a fitting tribute to the honest, unbiased reporting that separated Daniel Pearl from so many in today's media. 

It is ironic that those attributes of his reporting of the war in Kosovo may have led to his gruesome and barbaric murder in Pakistan. The Wall Street Journal on Dec. 31, 1999, carried Mr. Pearl's article, "War in Kosovo Was Cruel, Bitter, Savage; Genocide It Wasn't." The subtitle of the article that stated, "Tales of Mass Atrocity Arose And Were Passed Along Often With Little Proof," also went against the anti-Serb hysteria of the mainstream media in this country. 

Mr. Pearl exposed as a hoax the purported massacre of 700 Kosovo Albanians at the Trepca mines, which claimed that the victims' bodies were either incinerated in the mine's furnaces or thrown down the mine shaft. In his article, Mr. Pearl wrote, "By late summer, stories about a Nazi-like body-disposal facility were so widespread that investigators sent a three-man French gendarmerie team spelunking half a mile down the mine to search for bodies. They found none. Another team analyzed ashes in the furnace. They found no teeth or other signs of burnt bodies."

Why is this important? Because the Trepca mine massacre story is another example of media disinformation designed to get the American people to take sides in a tragic civil war in Kosovo, a war between the Christian Serbs and Islamic jihadists who now have taken control of the territory and are seeking independence. If independence is granted, Kosovo will become another radical Muslim state in the underbelly of Europe, a mini-Iran, able to freely infiltrate terrorists throughout Europe. 
     
STELLA L. JATRAS 
Camp Hill, Pa.

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Kosovo rises on international agenda

Kosovo rises on international agenda



The Washington Times www.washingtontimes.com

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Kosovo rises on international agenda

By Howard LaFranchi
CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR
Published October 15, 2006

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With unsettling nuclear developments in North Korea, wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and political upheaval in the Middle East, little attention is being paid to the Balkans, which might seem like a preoccupation of the post-Cold War 1990s.
    But Kosovo -- a Serbian province of 2 million people that experienced a NATO bombing campaign in 1999 -- is on the brink of bursting onto the world stage once again. With the United States and the European Union pressing for resolution of Kosovo's final status this year, it once looked like independence was assured. But now Serbia is trying to put that decision off, which could reawaken Balkan unrest.
    After seven years of United Nations control, the majority Albanian and Muslim population is clamoring for independence. But the Serbian, largely Christian, minority is campaigning to remain attached to Serbia. The Serbian Kosovars claim that independence would mean creation of an Islamic fundamentalist state in Europe and expose them to ethnic violence.
    Beyond those issues, other factors seem primed to raise Kosovo's status on the international agenda. The United States would like to free up the 1,700 peacekeeping troops it still has in the province. Economic investment in a region that is an important trade and energy route is being held up by uncertainty over Kosovo's status.
    Closely watched region
    And while some specialists warn that failure to resolve Kosovo's status could turn it into a powder keg again, others caution against hasty action. They say Kosovo is being closely watched by other restless regions in Eastern Europe and Central Asia -- including Georgia, Azerbaijan, and Moldova -- and could be used to fire up breakaway movements.
    "It may seem hard to imagine that there was a day not so long ago when the Balkans were the biggest foreign policy issue on the U.S. plate, but the simple issue is still there," said Daniel Serwer, a Balkans specialist at the United States Institute of Peace (USIP) in Washington. "Part of the population wants to pull away and be independent, and another part wants things to stay the same. It's the repercussions that make things complex."
    U.S. officials have been saying since January that this will be the year of decision on Kosovo's final status. "The people of Kosovo deserve greater clarity, and as we approach the end of the year, I suspect they will get greater clarity," said Daniel Fried, U.S. assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian affairs, on a stop last month in Pristina, Kosovo's capital.
    The U.N. special envoy to Kosovo, Martti Ahtisaari, is supposed to deliver a status settlement recommendation next month. Anticipating that the report will favor independence, Serbia is seeking to head it off by proposing a new constitution that specifies Kosovo is part of Serbia.
    U.S. and European Union officials say Serbia's actions are unlikely to derail the push to determine Kosovo's status -- though they say the tactics (possibly including a referendum on the new constitution and elections) could delay a decision, which ultimately is to be made by the U.N. Security Council, until next year.
    U.S. groups active
    While these maneuvers are going on, in Washington supporters and opponents of Kosovo's independence are redoubling their efforts to win adherents. Anti-independence groups backed by Serbia have been running newspaper ads and sponsoring seminars in Washington to warn of a radical Islamist state and renewed ethnic cleansing if Kosovo is allowed to break from Serbia.
    "Granting independence to Kosovo would be a reward for the crimes the Albanians have committed, and would create a base for criminality and jihad in the very heart of Europe," said Artemije Radosavljevic, a Serbian Orthodox bishop in Kosovo.
    Bishop Artemije, who has made several trips to Washington to plead the case of the Serbian population, claims that more than 3,000 Kosovo Serbs have been killed or kidnapped in the years of international administration. He adds that 150 churches and monasteries have been razed and thousands of Serbian houses destroyed. He says he has found sympathetic ears in the U.S. Congress, but little movement from a pro-independence stance in the State Department.
    Mr. Serwer, who is also vice president of USIP's Center for Post-Conflict Peace and Stability Operations, said that while there have been some cases of violence against Serbs, the numbers have been "grossly trumped up" by the anti-independence lobby to create a more alarming picture.
    Mr. Serwer reserves his ire for the references these groups make to Islamic terrorism "in an attempt to tap into American fears," he said.
    "These claims, that go so far as to equate an independent Kosovo to an al Qaeda refuge, are so outrageous and blatantly anti-Muslim that they are despicable," Mr. Serwer said.
    Pro-West orientation
    Holding a similar assessment is Janusz Bugajski, director of the New European Democracies Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, and an independence advocate. "The population of Kosovo is one of the more pro-Western and pro-American populations in the world," he said. "They had volunteers to fight [alongside the United States] in Afghanistan and Iraq, so to say they are [Islamic] fundamentalists is to spread disinformation."
    Beyond that, Mr. Bugajski cites reasons to settle Kosovo's status now. He worries the population could start to see the peacekeepers as occupiers, and he says uncertainty over the province's status is discouraging foreign investment. "I also believe that Serbia doesn't need the distraction of Kosovo as it modernizes and moves toward membership in the European Union," he said.
    Indeed, some European officials say the international community must be careful not to play the Kosovo issue in a way that reinforces reactionary forces in the anticipated elections.
    Such potential political implications have other specialists cautioning about Kosovo's influence. "This goes beyond Kosovo and affects a number of countries in the greater Black Sea area that are fractured," said Nikolas Gvosdev, editor of the National Interest political journal in Washington. "You have to at least ask the question if a too-hasty move to independence in Kosovo encourages the disintegration of other states."

http://washingtontimes.com/functions/print.php?StoryID=20061014-114854-1197r

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Independence demand revives fear in Balkans

Independence demand revives fear in Balkans By Richard Beeston, Diplomatic Editor

THE leader of Kosovo gave a warning yesterday that his people would not settle for anything less than full independence and statehood by the end of the year. Amid growing calls for a decision on the province’s status to be delayed until 2007, Agim Ceku, the prime minister of Kosovo, said his countrymen could lose faith with the international community if the promise of sovereignty was snatched away from them at the very last moment. While the world’s attention has been focused on events in the Middle East and Afghanistan, experts fear that the Balkans, where wars raged for much of the 1990s, could erupt again unless the current situation is carefully handled. At issue is the status of Kosovo, a province of Serbia until 1999, when the area was seized by Nato forces and placed under United Nations control as a protectorate. Kosovo has remained in this political limbo ever since. But Martti Ahtisaari, the UN envoy to Kosovo, has been formulating an agreement that would recognise the province’s independence, the dream of the majority ethnic Albanian population. Mr Ceku, 45, who met Margaret Beckett, the Foreign Secretary, described his country yesterday as “the final piece of the European puzzle”. He told The Times: “If we win independence it will silence the extremists. We will close the door on the Balkans’ history.” The United States and Britain support his view and the move to independence was expected to be contained in a report by Mr Ahtisaari due to be completed by early next month. But other countries in the six-nation Contact Group are more sceptical. Russia, which has traditionally supported its orthodox brethren in Serbia, is adamant that no solution should be imposed against the wishes of any party. Belgrade insists that Kosovo must remain part of Serbia and has called a referendum at the end of this month for a new constitution, which explicitly states that it remains a province of the Serbian state. Serbs will then go to the polls for general elections in December. This has persuaded some European players that it would be best to postpone a decision on Kosovo until 2007 or risk handing ultranationalist Serb forces an election victory. A senior official from a neighbouring country said: “Unless you live next to Serbia it is hard to understand the volatility of the situation. I cannot exaggerate the danger of making a decision on Kosovo’s status against Serbia’s wishes. Solving Kosovo could create a whole new conflict in the region.” Western diplomats are also concerned about the impact farther afield. Russia has made it clear that if the West pushes for an independent Kosovo, it would see no reason to prevent pro-Russian regions also seeking independence. It has in mind Trans-Dniester, a breakaway province of Moldova, and Abkhazia and South Ossetia, in Georgia. Nearer to home, Kosovo’s neighbours in Serbia and Macedonia fear that an independent state ruled by the majority Albanian population could rekindle separatist moves among their own Albanian populations. A Nato-led force provides security for Kosovo but if there were a flare-up of violence between Serbs and Albanians Britain would be expected to send reserve troops to restore order.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,13509-2401898,00.html

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Who is Agim Ceku?

Who is Agim Ceku?

Bad news for Kosovo raises Balkan tension

Simon Tisdall
Friday October 13, 2006
The Guardian

Plain-speaking Martti Ahtisaari, the former Finnish president who has been widely tipped to win the Nobel peace prize today, let the Kosovo cat out of the bag this week with potentially unpredictable consequences for Balkan stability.

As UN envoy charged with brokering a settlement by the end of the year between Serbia and the ethnic Albanian leadership in Pristina, Mr Ahtisaari conceded the negotiations were not going well. In fact, he went further. Agreement on Kosovo's final status was not on the cards, "at least not in my lifetime", he said. "The parties remain diametrically opposed." The breakaway province might have to wait a little longer for its long-sought independence, he said.

That was definitely not what the US, Britain or most Kosovans wanted to hear. They say 2007 must be the year when Kosovo becomes a sovereign country. And almost regardless of whether this ill-starred entity of about 2 million people with no visible means of support and a dispiriting history of crime, violence and division can be transformed into a viable state, they seem determined, at least in public, to have their way.

Other factors have a bearing. Nato still has more than 16,000 troops tied down in Kosovo, seven years after intervening to end the late Slobodan Milosevic's oppressive rule. The EU has 6,500 soldiers in Bosnia. Both organisations, facing expanding commitments elsewhere and keen to encourage Balkan self-sufficiency, want out.

On present plans, the international presence in Kosovo would be drastically reduced following a settlement. In Bosnia, the EU hopes to deploy the new pan-European gendarmerie. Any delay would badly upset these calculations. According to the US, it would also increase the chances of renewed sectarian fighting involving Kosovo's put-upon ethnic Serb minority.

US and British officials have moved quickly to re-bag Mr Ahtisaari's cat, insisting the talks are on course. After meeting Kosovo's prime minister, Agim Ceku, in London yesterday, the Europe minister, Geoff Hoon, said Britain "remains committed to working towards a settlement of Kosovo's status by the end of 2006". Mr Ceku, too, is adamant. "Nothing less than independence will be acceptable ... Kosovo is ready. We are going to be a modern, democratic, secular country," he said this week. If Kosovan aspirations were thwarted even temporarily, a unilateral declaration of independence could not be ruled out.

Unsurprisingly, Serbia has other ideas. Having watched Montenegro go its own way this year, the Belgrade government offered autonomy but resolutely opposed Kosovo's secession. So, too, has the Serbian Orthodox church.

Both government and clergy back a new national constitution, to be voted on (by Serbs but not Kosovo's ethnic Albanians) in a referendum later this month. It deems the province an "integral part" of Serbia and is expected to be approved. Early elections in December are also likely to focus on the issue.

Indeed, some fear the Kosovo controversy may act as a lightning rod for wider discontents. This year's suspension of Serbia's EU membership talks, the perceived failure of the 2000 pro-democracy revolution, and entrenched economic problems are all fuelling an anticipated surge in support for the far right.

The Radical party, led by the jailed war crimes indictee Vojislav Seselj, looks likely to win most votes. Liberal and left-of-centre parties are meanwhile urging a boycott of the constitutional referendum, saying its passage will trigger renewed confrontation with the west.

All this might be dismissed as internal politicking. But Russian sympathy for Belgrade's stance adds a whole new dimension to rising Balkan tensions. Moscow, a member of the so-called Balkans Contact Group, opposes Kosovo's independence partly because it may encourage secessionists elsewhere, such as in Chechnya. If Kosovo is cut loose, it says, then Abkhazians and South Ossetians in Georgia and ethnic Russians in Moldova should be afforded similar licence.

But Moscow's stance has little to do with resolving the Kosovo conundrum and a lot to do with the wider, ongoing geopolitical struggle between Russia and the west. By suggesting delay Mr Ahtisaari, like a hapless England goalkeeper, may have missed his kick and given the game away.

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