Progress?
April 27, 2006 02:58 AM
"The New York Times reported Friday that in addition to possible charges directly involving the revelation of Valerie Wilson's identity and related perjury or conspiracy charges, Fitzgerald is exploring other possible crimes. Specifically, according to the Times, the special counsel is seeking to determine whether anyone transmitted classified material or information to persons who were not cleared to receive it -- which could be a felony under the 1917 Espionage Act....[snip]
All such speculation about criminal indictments must be tempered with caution. Nobody outside Fitzgerald's office can be certain what charges he is considering or whose fate he is mulling over. Even the highest-ranking figures in the Bush White House, which would deprive others of their constitutional rights and has already done so, deserve the presumption of innocence.
But certain persons in this government committed a serious offense against the national security of the United States to serve political partisan ends -- and they don't deserve to get away with it." - Joe Conason, Salon.com 10/7/05
***
"The Justice Department has warned that its leak investigations may result in subpoenas to reporters, seeking to force them to expose their sources. Leading Republicans on Capitol Hill have urged that anyone who discloses or publishes classified information should be hauled before a grand jury.
And certain figures in the media have amplified those threats, notably including the virtue guru, superpatriot and degenerate gambler William Bennett. He thinks Ms. Priest and James Risen, the New York Times correspondent who broke the story of warrantless wiretapping by the National Security Agency, should be given prison sentences, not prizes.
Despite such confident denunciations from the right, however, determining which leaks are bad and which are good can be a murky process." - Joe Conason, NYO 5/1/06
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Pinchuk Meets POGO
April 27, 2006 01:56 AM
As predicted, Spielberg's production partner here in Ukraine is feeling the heat from prosecutors now that he's left the Rada. And they won't be voting in another new parliament for five years....
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Fool's Paradise
April 25, 2006 11:45 AM
Hop on over to Larry Johnson's blog to see how a sophisticated ex-spook handles complex information, presents arguments -- and responds to criticism. Then take a few moments to contemplate the dangerous ineptitude and hackery our intelligence services have demonstrated over the last couple of decades. Suddenly it's all becoming a bit clearer, isn't it? I think you'll find yourself in agreement with Miss Scarlett....
P.S. If "LJ" seems like such a buffoon, why are you the one driving up his Web traffic? Hah Hah! The joke's on you, see? See? No?
P.P.S. Like any highly trained intelligence professional, LJ deploys casual misogyny and small-dick insults like verbal tear-gas. It burns! Proceed with caution.
[Hat tip: Tom McGuire]
Diplomacy at Warp Speed
April 25, 2006 09:51 AM
The American ambassador in Kiev, John Herbst, is denying reports that President Bush sent official congratulations to Viktor Yanukovich following his party's victory in the March 26 parliamentary elections. Glad he cleared that up. And to think it took just a week to issue the statement! Probably just in time to -- well, no, probably not....
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The Good Fight
April 22, 2006 04:04 AM
One-time Army enlistee Markos "Daily Kos" Moulitsas explains why the military is a terrific opportunity for young folks, just as long as it isn't asked to do, you know, military things.
The military is perhaps the ideal society -- we worked hard but the Army took care of us in return. All our basic needs were met -- housing, food, and medical care. It was as close to a color-blind society as I have ever seen. We looked out for one another. The Army invested in us. I took heavily subsidized college courses and learned to speak German on the Army’s dime. I served with people from every corner of the country. I got to party at the Berlin Wall after it fell and explored Prague in those heady post-communism days. I wasn’t just a tourist; I was a witness to history.The Army taught me the very values that make us progressives -- community, opportunity, and investment in people and the future....
Lest this sound like an ad for the Army, those were different times, when our men and women weren’t treated as expendable pawns in a neoconservative’s game of Risk. One of the many tragedies of the Iraq War is that the military is no longer a viable option for those needing a boost up the socio-economic ladder, making college a possibility, granting people the confidence and experience that has paid such huge dividends for countless veterans.
Daily Kos and Crashing the Gate, my co-authored book, would not exist without the confidence and experience I gained in the military. Yet I wouldn’t enlist in today’s world. I look forward to the day that military service is once again a viable alternative for people like the person I used to be.
Oh, but that military does exist. It's currently defending Canada from an American invasion.
In and Out
April 20, 2006 03:58 PM
Kyiv's one-time mayor-for-life refuses to leave office, despite a third-place finish in the March 26 election -- oh, and the swearing-in of his successor. Hey, at least he agreed to stand for election, right?
Omelchenko had said several days earlier that he planned to continue litigation to keep his job, although at least two Kyiv courts have said he doesn’t have the right to.The same day he was sworn in, Chernovetsky officially fired Omelchenko, his staff and the head of a local television station, who has since checked into hospital, presumably to hold on to his job, too.
Omelchenko has called the dismissals illegal and accused the Interior Ministry of conniving with Chernovetsky to have his office seized by police, even raising concerns that they might try to plant drugs or weapons there.
To anyone familiar with Ukrainian power politics, none of this is unusual during transfers of authority. Winner takes all, and losers cling to their offices from hospital beds or until paramilitary units in flak jackets drag them out on to the street.
As for courts, they reverse each other’s decisions with such regularity, that one wonders if they are subject to the same laws.
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Mission: Yulia
April 18, 2006 06:52 AM
Went to see Yulia Tymoshenko speak Monday night at the old Lenin Museum (now called Ukraine House) on Khreshatyk. To say that the event, put together by the American Chamber of Commerce, was "standing room only" is an understatement. The top-floor conference room was jammed -- a conservative estimate would put the attendance at around 350 -- and the level of media coverage suggested that this was considered to be an important event.
On the rudiments, it was typical Yulia: forceful, composed, engaging, on occasion charming. It is impossible not to be impressed by the sheer energy and nerve she brings to the political sphere here. As with the country's corporate sphere, the upper reaches of Ukrainian politics are still male-dominated to a degree that one no longer sees in America and Western Europe. (Western commentators who suggest that Communism at least brought gender equality to the societies under its yoke have no idea what they're talking about. I'm looking at you, Seamus Milne....) And Yulia is the exception who proves the rule. It is almost inconceivable that another woman exists in Ukraine with the grit and dynamism that has enabled Yulia to break through to the extent she has. Can anyone name another successful party worldwide whose name is eponomous with its leader? (Bloc of Yulia Tymoshenko, or BYuT). "My ambition is to make Ukraine one of the jewels of the world, and no one is going to stop me," she said (through the translator) at the conclusion of the event. She is unique.
Yulia's least attractive quality is her taste for self-pity, which combines easily with her nose for conspiracy. Clearly cognizant that she was addressing a business audience, Yulia went to some lengths to stress that her reputation as a populist determined to complete the process of re-privatization was a creation of mass media enterprises controlled by her political opponents. While I don't doubt that such entities exist, Yulia provided plenty of public utterances to support the allegation during her fore-shortened tenure as prime minister last year. She ought not be surprised when, for instance, her attacks on the gas deal are interpreted as demagogic. They were demagogic. (I'm thinking especially of her charge that Yekhanurov sold-out Ukraine to Russia.)
Given that the latter episode gave her common cause with Viktor Yanukovich and his political bloc, her disavowals of any intention to form a coalition with the Regions party were surprisingly harsh. "The Party of the Regions is not a party," she said at one point. "It's just one big corporation," designed to enrich its "shareholders." She repeatedly referred to the once-and-perhaps-future Orange alliance -- BYuT, Our Ukraine and the Socialists -- as the Democratic Coalition, in presumed contrast to Yanukovich's group and, of course, the Communists, who also made it into the new Rada (and have indicated no interest in being part of any coalition). She cast her bid for prime minister as an obvious entitlement for the "governing" party, as BYuT would represent by far the largest bloc in a majority coalition with OU and Moroz's Socialists.
But how would a Tymoshenko government govern? As is often the case with Yulia, regardless of the issues under discussion, Yulia herself is the real issue. She pushed all the usual buttons the foreign capital class would like to see pushed -- judicial reform, rule of law, property rights, elimination of corruption -- but these are matters that any prime minister would place at the top of the agenda. The question is whether there are any practical solutions available, and whether they can realistically be imposed. Yes, it may be quite true that even the simplest land deals require 127 different signatures and consequently take three or four years to complete; and it was admirably candid of Tymoshenko to admit "the bribes will (ultimately) exceed the price of the plot by two times." But how you get from recognition of the problem to the resolution of it -- in this case, Yulia envisions a system that requires maybe five signatures and takes a week to a month -- is fundamental.
Truth be told, Ukraine's problems do not call for visionaries; they call for full-bore implementers, perhaps in the Giuliani mold. That means politicians willing to attack and offend the establishment without mercy, and trust the public to trust them. It's hard to see Yulia as this person, in large part because her popularity relies on maintenaning a cult of personality in which she is an intrepid mother-figure, a scourge of the ruling oligarchs, who will finally unite Ukraine in her benevolent embrace. At Monday's event, she was unable even to commit to ending the absurd legal immunity extended to Rada deputies, vowing instead to "name names" in the interests of "transparency." This of course plays to her strength, which is, well, naming names. But shame is not much of a disciplinary factor in Ukraine. (In fact, what you or I consider shameful behavior is kinda admired by a segment of the population.) And besides, what accountability is there when every deputy is just another name on a party list? This last election tested that proposition, and Regions, which has been the party of choice for virtually every scoundrel and thief since independence, scored a big victory. (She also suggested she would give the Rada's minority -- Regions, basically -- control of the accounting chamber, in the belief that such responsibility would make this group less likely to engage in shenanigans. Sorry, but I'm not following the argument here....) Yulia talks like a reformer, but ultimately she wants to win pageants. There is, alas, no room in this drama for someone who sacks half the bureaucracy and overhauls the tax system.
They love not to know
April 17, 2006 03:59 AM
The NYT officially enters the farce era of its narrative arc with yesterday's editorial endorsement of, well, ignorance.
Mr. Bush did not declassify the National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq — in any accepted sense of that word — when he authorized I. Lewis Libby Jr., through Vice President Dick Cheney, to talk about it with reporters. He permitted a leak of cherry-picked portions of the report. The declassification came later....Obviously, we do not object to government officials talking to reporters about important matters that their bosses do not want discussed. It would be impossible to cover any administration, especially one so secretive as this, unless that happened. (Judith Miller, who then worked for The Times, was one of the reporters Mr. Libby chose for this leak, although she never wrote about it.) But the version of the facts that Mr. Libby was authorized to divulge was so distorted that it seems more like disinformation than any sincere attempt to inform the public. [Emphases mine]
Oh dear. So the Times would prefer no information at all to "cherry-picked" information that is not declassified in an "accepted sense of that word." Even when the information would otherwise be kept secret, or could shed new light on a president's decision to go to war. The Times will just curse the darkness, thank you very much.
Let's put aside the question of accuracy. (The information, cherry-picked or otherwise, was in fact an accurate reflection of the intelligence community's consensus on Iraq at the time. The NIE just happens to have been wrong.) Does the Times really believe there are disinterested sources in the political world who, out of the goodness of their hearts (presumably), set aside time to leak complete, unbiased and otherwise secret information to reporters? Perhaps the editorialists consult an oracle. Or manatees! (link to video)
The unhappy reality is that there are sources who basically give you the full picture... and then there is the source who doesn't reveal that he was recommended for an intelligence mission by his wife, who works at the CIA in the very area he was sent to investigate. He also doesn't tell you that he serves as an unpaid adviser to one of the incumbent president's potential challengers in the next election, and uses your credulity to press his agenda. And when he is later revealed to have all the credibility of a carnival barker, your decision to believe him makes you look foolish. Yes, that's the type of source that can really burn you. At least reporters knew where Libby was coming from....
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the biennial automobile revolution
April 14, 2006 07:00 AM
Yes, it is difficult to reconcile Viktor Yushchenko's miserable poll ratings with the selfless service provided Ukraine by administration figures such as Olexiy Ivchenko, head of the state oil and gas firm Naftogaz and proud owner of a new top-of-the-line Mercedes.
Ivchenko said the car was bought by a Naftogaz subsidiary for his use because "since 1992 I've ridden around in the latest models. The only thing that's changed is that every two years I have upgraded to the latest Mercedes model... I won't betray my traditions.""I think that a director of such an enterprise should ride around in the most decent and most expensive car," Ivchenko told Ukrainian media after the report was published in Ukrainska Pravda.
The car's cost "is a drop in the ocean that can hardly affect Naftogaz's finances," he said.
Ivchenko also defended his use of an orphan as a hood ornament, saying he is "the only father the boy has ever known...."
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lindbergh et al
April 12, 2006 09:01 AM
Yesterday, James Taranto of Opinion Journal noted [first item] that the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette had published a defense, by former ambassador Edward Peck, of the much-disparaged Mearsheimer-Walt "working paper." That document, as you will recall, argues that insidious Jews and the Israel Lobby control the U.S. government and have steered policymaking away from American interests in order to serve Israel's. So it should come as no surprise that a "Holocaust revisionist" named Mark Weber, the author of an anti-Semitic flyer posted recently on Harvard's campus [second Taranto item], says its content "makes some of the same points as are made in the 81 page paper by [Kennedy School Academic Dean M. Stephen] Walt and [University of Chicago professor John J.] Mearsheimer."
All of which leads me to ask: Is there anything to the fact that all these gentlemen have Germanic surnames?
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Babi Yargghhh
April 11, 2006 08:33 AM
So Steven Spielberg has teamed up with Viktor Pinchuk -- a billionaire businessman and outgoing parliament deputy whose public corruption helped launch the Orange Revolution -- to make a documentary about the Holocaust in Ukraine. Hmmmm. I'm no public relations pro, and I'm down with the Shoah project as much as the next Yid, but I still can't help thinking this arrangement is going to come back and bite Spielberg on the ass. When? Roundabout the time someone clues in the LAT or WSJ.... Interesting tidbit: As he exits parliament, Pinchuk loses his absolute immunity from prosecution. At one time, before he self-spayed, Yushchenko gave firebrand campaign speeches in which he denounced Khryvorizhstal and other such deals, and vowed to "throw the bastards in jail." A lot of Ukrainians have wondered what happened to that pledge.... Complicating factor: Pinchuk's partner in the Khryvorizhstal deal is entering parliament just as Pinchuk leaves it. It's almost like the two tycoons arranged it that way for some odd reason....
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It's All Greek to Them
April 11, 2006 08:07 AM
Just exactly how many official languages is Serbia and Montenegro prepared to have? The precedent is now set for the introduction of Spanish... and it's about time, I say. P.S. I live in Ukraine and don't hear much Ukrainian. I'm told they speak it in the Western oblasts, though. Sounds as if there may soon be more Ukrainian spoken in Belgrade than Sevastopol....
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from the annals of diplomacy
April 10, 2006 09:16 AM
The Russian government has assured Condoleeza Rice, in writing(!), that it did not tip-off Saddam Hussein to America's intentions on the eve of the Iraq war. As you will see below, Russia's denial struck Rice as firm and unequivocal. The emphases are mine.
According to the letter, “the Russian government does not believe that contact took place” between Saddam Hussein and the Russian ambassador to Baghdad at the time, Vladimir Titorenko, [Rice] said.Lavrov “told me that he believes that any such contact would have been highly inappropriate for an ambassador of Russia,” she added.
“Of course, we will continue to look into the matter,” she told lawmakers, saying the U.S. administration was trying to verify the authenticity of documents which indicate Moscow tipped off the Iraqi dictator about U.S. plans for the March 20, 2003 invasion.
[Report orig. from AFP]
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Where do the Russian pervs turn?
April 10, 2006 08:56 AM
France sheltered Roman Polanski, but she's not so generous toward the home-grown molesters, evidently.
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So, I guess things didn't work out, then
April 10, 2006 08:39 AM
One Belgian company is calling it quits here, the Kyiv Post reports:
“We want out of here!” said Lee Fockenier, the commercial director and co-owner of Magic, a Ukrainian subsidiary of Belgian-registered Propharex, which sets up and sells pharmaceutical plants in Third World countries.Fockenier said he is “worn out and exhausted,” and that his legal adversary, Zdorovya Narodu (People’s Health) intended things to work out that way.
Yes, even the drug makers get sick in the Third World.
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Truth to be told
April 6, 2006 06:19 AM
There's so much sound wisdom and pure common sense in this piece from Timothy Garton Ash in today's Guardian of London newspaper that, for just one moment, you may wonder if he's secretly American. This point is especially well taken:
Roughly one in three Ukrainian voters, mainly in the more Russian-oriented east of the country, chose Yanukovich. That's about 10% less than he probably got in the rigged presidential election of 2004 that sparked the orange revolution. The so-called orange vote was split between the now feuding leaders of the orange revolution, Viktor Yushchenko and Yulia Timoshenko, but their combined vote exceeded that for Yanukovich. Voters, except in the pro-western western end of the country, punished Yushchenko for disappointed hopes, economic mess, continued widespread corruption, dealing badly with the Russian gas squeeze at the beginning of the year, and falling out with Yulia. Fair on some counts, less so on others. But the essential point remains: the people could choose in a free and fair election. They can bring an old rogue back, if they want; then they can chuck him out again. It's democracy, stupid.
Ash also touches on an issue that had likewise occurred to me in the days following Ukraine's vote, when a Ukrainian friend noted that some political parties were alleging fraud at the polls. This was her way of suggesting that Ukraine had relapsed into its customary, non-democratic ways. Let's leave aside the issue of whether it's possible to have 45 political parties on a ballot without any of them claiming improprieties after the vote -- and we'll even concede that various types of fraud may have occurred here or there throughout the country, though not on any scale that should compromise the result. The fact is, the vote itself was probably less susceptible to fraud and manipulation than the balloting in any typical American election. And I say that as a certified jingoist! Granted, we Americans are always to expect a certain amount of chicanery because of the premium on turnout -- that is, parties can't take it for granted -- as well as the wide variability in ballot types and voting procedures. That's not to excuse it, but only to suggest that Western countries might strive to achieve "Ukrainian standards" in something, for a change.
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could these events be unrelated?
April 4, 2006 07:21 AM
On March 29, a vast segment of humanity, from Brazil to Mongolia, witnessed a rare total eclipse of the sun.
Meanwhile in Washington, just three days later, a similar orbital alignment took shape. (My emphases to follow.)
[Rep. Cynthia] McKinney, speaking at a news conference where she was joined by singer Harry Belafonte and actor Danny Glover, said she understands that a case against her may be referred for prosecution, but declared she will be exonerated.
Let's see: Total eclipse occurs, then Belafonte, Glover and McKinney appear at the same podium all at once.... We've been shown two of the Seven Seals! We're doomed!
But hey, at least McKinney hasn't signed the Congressional oath for access to classified information, which would enable her to view highly sensitive national security intelligence and thus hasten the apocalypse.... Update: Noooooooo!
I leave at nightfall for my small, fortified cabin in the mountains, where I will await the Resurrection of Tupac....
Jesus, it's cold here in Kyiv. Confined more than usual to my apartment, I've been checking in with the journalists at the BBC. And I have an observation. If BBC producers would just instruct the reporters to end every field segment with the words, "But what does this mean for global warming?" they would be able to slip seamlessly into the next report - and maybe save a few quid on staffing the presenter desk. A modest proposal.
February 22, 2007 11:19 AM · 
A middle-aged Ukrainian woman told me last night about her experiences as a member of the Komsomol, the Communist Youth organization during the Soviet era. On Christmas and Easter, she and other members of the group were ordered to the local churches, where they were instructed to form two concentric rings around the buildings by locking arms. These rings were intended as a defense perimeter that would keep people from going to church on religious occasions. This peculiar Soviet abhorrence of religion is one reason that in Ukraine gifts are not exchanged on Christmas, but rather (last night) on New Year's Eve. In 2007, let's all of us, and especially us Americans, make a little more effort to keep in perspective our astonishing good fortune, and be grateful for what some sacrifice to preserve it. America may not be perfect, but it's the closest thing we've got.
January 1, 2007 06:51 AM ·
Kofi Annan has stepped down at the U.N. - at least a decade too late. I predict future historians will find it difficult to judge whether this ineffectual dupe was the puppet of genocidal regimes and autocrats or just their indispensable enabler. It is tough to fully enumerate the sins and consequences of this repugnant figure, but this WSJ editorial begins the grim task.
December 17, 2006 05:59 AM ·
