Putin Archives
The Devil's Advocate
November 27, 2006 02:44 AM
Always available to vouchsafe a tyrant, Pat Buchanan acquits Vladimir Putin in the murder of Sasha Litvinenko in London last week.
What benefit could Putin conceivably realize from the London killing of an enemy of his regime, who had just become a British citizen? Why would the Russian president, at the peak of his popularity, with his regime awash in oil revenue and himself playing a strong hand in world politics, risk a breach with every Western nation by ordering the public murder of a man who was more of a nuisance than a threat to his regime?
How quaint. Putin jails his critics, silences the free press, bullies his Western-leaning neighbors, supplies Iran with missiles, prevents sanctions against North Korea and blocks efforts to stop the genocide in Darfur - and Pat wonders why he would now risk a "breach" with the West! And just when things were going so smoothly....
Well, I would never presume to challenge Pat's expertise on the authoritarian mindset, but it seems to me that he's over-estimated Putin's desire to ingratiate himself with Europe. He's also overlooked the obvious Kremlin windfall from the murder: Even if Putin's goons weren't responsible, Putin's critics will get the message. How better to intimidate opponents than to demonstrate that there is no safe haven safe for them? The inscrutability of the act only enhances the effect.
Yet Pat considers it more plausible that the Kremlin's enemies - Litvinenko's friends - cooked up this entire scheme in an effort to "embarrass" Putin, the former KGB man, who comes across here as a Chaplinesque figure, charmingly oblivious as his opponents are murdered around him. Uh huh.
It is fitting here to mention a book review posted recently on the CIA's Web site. The volume explores the KGB files (translated memos, actually - the files were destroyed) on Andrei Sakharov, the late dissident. It sheds light on the absurdity and paranoia that once governed the KGB [Hat tip: aldaily.com].
At the time of Sakharov’s first public expression of dissent—the publication in the West in 1968 of his essay “Reflections on Progress, Coexistence, and Intellectual Freedom”—the KGB did not know what to make of him. Sakharov was, after all, one of the Soviet Union’s leading physicists, and he had been showered with honors. The KGB, not realizing that Sakharov’s essay was the result of a gradual disillusionment with Soviet society rather than an impulsive act, at first hoped to bring him back to orthodoxy. “To prevent him from committing politically harmful acts, we believe it would make sense of one of the secretaries of the Central Committee to receive Sakharov and conduct an appropriate conversation with him,” recommended KGB Chairman Yuriy Andropov in June 1968. (90)
The reluctance to condemn Sakharov, however, brought problems of its own, as the KGB noted that “government circles in the USA” might misread the Kremlin’s silence as an endorsement of his views and wrongly assume that Soviet foreign policy was shifting. (94) In 1970, with Sakharov becoming more radical and building contacts with other dissidents, Andropov recommended the installation of listening devices in his apartment to “discover the contacts inciting him to commit hostile acts” and prevent “individuals hostile to the Soviet state” from exploiting his name. The monitoring, which eventually included physical surveillance, break-ins and thefts, and reporting by informers, continued until Sakharov’s death in 1999. (99)[3]
The KGB, continually unable to comprehend Sakharov’s dissent, could only view his actions through the prism of its Bolshevik and Chekist past. As a result, KGB officials not only saw him as the tool of foreign conspiracies but often managed to detect multiple plots working together. In December 1975, Andropov reported that “bourgeois propaganda is actively exploiting [Sakharov’s statements] for purposes of subversive activities against the Soviet Union and other socialist countries.” (207) Soviet anti-Semitism reinforced these themes, as when Andropov declared in 1973 that Sakharov and Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn were “offering their services to reactionary imperialist and especially Zionist circles.” (166) Shortly after President Jimmy Carter sent a letter of support to Sakharov, Andropov claimed that “ideological centers and Zionist organizations have involved the new Carter administration” in Sakharov’s subversion. (223) The KGB also often ascribed Sakharov’s dissent to the malign influence of Elena Bonner. Her views, wrote Andropov in 1980, “not only are based on her hostile attitude toward the Soviet system but also conform to the recommendation of intelligence services in the USA.”
This is the universe Putin emerged from.
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Putin Archives
The Devil's Advocate
November 27, 2006 02:44 AM
Always available to vouchsafe a tyrant, Pat Buchanan acquits Vladimir Putin in the murder of Sasha Litvinenko in London last week.
What benefit could Putin conceivably realize from the London killing of an enemy of his regime, who had just become a British citizen? Why would the Russian president, at the peak of his popularity, with his regime awash in oil revenue and himself playing a strong hand in world politics, risk a breach with every Western nation by ordering the public murder of a man who was more of a nuisance than a threat to his regime?
How quaint. Putin jails his critics, silences the free press, bullies his Western-leaning neighbors, supplies Iran with missiles, prevents sanctions against North Korea and blocks efforts to stop the genocide in Darfur - and Pat wonders why he would now risk a "breach" with the West! And just when things were going so smoothly....
Well, I would never presume to challenge Pat's expertise on the authoritarian mindset, but it seems to me that he's over-estimated Putin's desire to ingratiate himself with Europe. He's also overlooked the obvious Kremlin windfall from the murder: Even if Putin's goons weren't responsible, Putin's critics will get the message. How better to intimidate opponents than to demonstrate that there is no safe haven safe for them? The inscrutability of the act only enhances the effect.
Yet Pat considers it more plausible that the Kremlin's enemies - Litvinenko's friends - cooked up this entire scheme in an effort to "embarrass" Putin, the former KGB man, who comes across here as a Chaplinesque figure, charmingly oblivious as his opponents are murdered around him. Uh huh.
It is fitting here to mention a book review posted recently on the CIA's Web site. The volume explores the KGB files (translated memos, actually - the files were destroyed) on Andrei Sakharov, the late dissident. It sheds light on the absurdity and paranoia that once governed the KGB [Hat tip: aldaily.com].
At the time of Sakharov’s first public expression of dissent—the publication in the West in 1968 of his essay “Reflections on Progress, Coexistence, and Intellectual Freedom”—the KGB did not know what to make of him. Sakharov was, after all, one of the Soviet Union’s leading physicists, and he had been showered with honors. The KGB, not realizing that Sakharov’s essay was the result of a gradual disillusionment with Soviet society rather than an impulsive act, at first hoped to bring him back to orthodoxy. “To prevent him from committing politically harmful acts, we believe it would make sense of one of the secretaries of the Central Committee to receive Sakharov and conduct an appropriate conversation with him,” recommended KGB Chairman Yuriy Andropov in June 1968. (90)
The reluctance to condemn Sakharov, however, brought problems of its own, as the KGB noted that “government circles in the USA” might misread the Kremlin’s silence as an endorsement of his views and wrongly assume that Soviet foreign policy was shifting. (94) In 1970, with Sakharov becoming more radical and building contacts with other dissidents, Andropov recommended the installation of listening devices in his apartment to “discover the contacts inciting him to commit hostile acts” and prevent “individuals hostile to the Soviet state” from exploiting his name. The monitoring, which eventually included physical surveillance, break-ins and thefts, and reporting by informers, continued until Sakharov’s death in 1999. (99)[3]
The KGB, continually unable to comprehend Sakharov’s dissent, could only view his actions through the prism of its Bolshevik and Chekist past. As a result, KGB officials not only saw him as the tool of foreign conspiracies but often managed to detect multiple plots working together. In December 1975, Andropov reported that “bourgeois propaganda is actively exploiting [Sakharov’s statements] for purposes of subversive activities against the Soviet Union and other socialist countries.” (207) Soviet anti-Semitism reinforced these themes, as when Andropov declared in 1973 that Sakharov and Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn were “offering their services to reactionary imperialist and especially Zionist circles.” (166) Shortly after President Jimmy Carter sent a letter of support to Sakharov, Andropov claimed that “ideological centers and Zionist organizations have involved the new Carter administration” in Sakharov’s subversion. (223) The KGB also often ascribed Sakharov’s dissent to the malign influence of Elena Bonner. Her views, wrote Andropov in 1980, “not only are based on her hostile attitude toward the Soviet system but also conform to the recommendation of intelligence services in the USA.”
This is the universe Putin emerged from.
Link
· Diplomacy
| Europe
| Putin
| Putin
| Russia
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 ·
I am often asked what it's like living in Ukraine. Well, yesterday afternoon I heard some hammering, and it sounded pretty close, so I went to se what was up. Looking out from a living room window I found two men in a cherry-picker, and they were hacking away at the rim of my balcony with sledge mallets, breaking away the concrete and tearing up the tiles. I figured the owner of my apartment must have forgotten to tell me she was having work done. Today I found out this wasn't the case. Alarmed, she phoned the Zhek - the state agency responsible for, but rarely inclined to undertake, the upkeep of public property. Their response was basically, News to us. We are now facing the prospect that we may never learn who these men were and why they were attacking my balcony, which now needs extensive repairs. It is not beyond the realm of possibility that I have been victimized in an act of serial vandalism by two men with sledges and a cherry-picker. That, my friends, is what it's like to live in Ukraine.
November 15, 2006 04:23 PM ·
Help, I'm on crack!
Oops - I mean, Help, I've been hacked! Not sure how long it was there, but someone managed to place an unauthorized link in Ethanistan. If anyone clicked on it, I apologize for not catching it sooner. Unless it linked to something cool. In which case, I'm glad I could open your mind to new exotic experiences, man.
August 23, 2006 12:05 PM ·
REVEALER, REVEAL THYSELF
Hmmmm. You can read through the entirety of Tony Judt's defense of the Mearsheimer/Walt paper without ever learning that Judt has called for the dissolution of Israel. Yet it's a not-unreasonable assumption that this argument, which was (of course) very controversial when it was aired, was what led the Times to Judt's doorstep in the first place. Bad copy editing?
April 19, 2006 08:29 AM ·
Blair: Contra the "Doctrine of Benign Inactivity"
Britain being home to some of earth's most cynical and repugnant twits -- George Galloway and Harold Pinter, to name just two -- it is easy sometimes to forget the heroic moral fortitude its leaders have demonstrated at critical moments across history. Tony Blair reminds us why he deserves mention alongside Churchill and Thatcher.
March 22, 2006 10:08 AM ·
Greg Gutfeld answers one of the blogosphere's great quandaries: How do you even begin to satirize a Web site that presents Alec Baldwin, Deepak Chopra and other B-list dinner guests as deep thinkers? It's the funniest thing in cyberspace at the moment. Don't miss Greg's "bio" -- and definitely do not miss the comments left below his entries by HuffPosters, confused and angry, who came for the wisdom of Cindy Sheehan and got rabbit-punched by this smartass.
March 1, 2006 10:58 AM ·
A true gentleman of the Blogosphere has learned he must battle more than just Moonbats in the months and years to come. Stop by GM's Corner and give George a shout -- and maybe leave some change in the bowl on the way out.
February 16, 2006 05:29 AM ·
Fight Fascism - Eat a Butter Cookie. Wikipedia provides a handy list of Danish companies here. Hey, if all of us here band together and buy Danish that would be like ... four or five bucks. But it's the principle that counts!
February 9, 2006 08:13 PM ·
