Foreign NGOs: “Philanthropists” with Hidden Agendas

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The recent disputes over NGOs operating in Russia financed from abroad rage on as the parties concerned doggedly repeat their own arguments without listening to what the other side has to say. Members of the Human Rights Centre “Memorial”, founded by the late academician Andrei Sakharov, and liberal {that is, “conservative” in Anglosphere terms: editor} Western media outlets keep pointing up the sinister meaning the expression “foreign agent” had under Stalin. In turn, critics of anti-Putin NGOs say that Russian law only imitates the US Foreign Agents Registration Act of 1938, which is still in force and in operation. For the younger generation, all this could seem somewhat dated… Stalin died 60 years ago, in 1953, whilst the Foreign Agents Registration Act became law shortly before World War II. Even the oldest of those taking part in the current NGO-related disputes were little kids back then.

More recently, ex-Georgian President Eduard Shevardnadze… a respected political figure in the West… accused the Open Society Foundation (OSF) (an NGO funded by George Soros) and Georgian NGOs affiliated to it of orchestrating the 2003 coup that brought Mikhail Saakashvili to power. Curiously, US Ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul, who’s keen on seeing Russia repent for Stalinism, doesn’t intend to admit America‘s wrongdoings himself. Maksim Grigoriev, a member of the RF Public Chamber, said that McFaul, in a speech to the Public Chamber, said that he felt no need to be sorry for the USA having a hand in the Georgian coup, or, in hiring intelligence experts to work for American NGOs based in post-Soviet republics, including Russia.

The post-Soviet space offers a wide range of opportunities for American-funded NGOs, which arrived only in the 1990s. In the 1970s and 1980s, the same American groups operated in Latin America, and before that, in the Middle East. In what is seen as a “quiet revolution in American official history”, former US President Bill Clinton acknowledged the role of the CIA in orchestrating the 1973 coup in Chile, whilst Barack Obama spilled the beans on the American part in staging the Iranian coup of 1953 that toppled the progressive government of Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh. Coincidentally or not, at the time of the coups, American “charitable” bodies operated in both countries.

Grigoriev, who also runs the Democracy Research Foundation, said, “Assurances from pro-western NGOs that their activities have nothing to do with politics are all lies. They pursue political goals and coordinate their operations with foreign governments. However, this doesn’t mean that we should label them as ‘foreign spies’. Even though these organisations receive funds from abroad, they pose no danger if their operations are transparent and clear”.

Grigoriev is certainly right. The world that we live in is an open space where public likes and dislikes travel freely across borders. The negative attitudes in the EU and the USA to some highly-placed Russian politicians are well-known, and one could feel them during President Putin’s recent visit to Germany and the Netherlands. These attitudes are bound to have minority support in Russia… at least, amidst the liberal-minded intelligentsia {that is, amongst “libertarians” in American terms: editor}. Nevertheless, whatever happens, Russia can’t afford any more revolutions… its first, and foremost, priority is to avoid upheavals. Therefore, “philanthropists” with hidden agendas will have to come clean on the real aims of their activities.

11 April 2013

Dmitri Babich

Voice of Russia World Service

http://english.ruvr.ru/2013_04_11/NGOs-suitcases-with-false-bottoms/

Editor’s Note:

Do note that the author points up that US Ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul is “keen on seeing Russia repent for Stalinism”. Hmm… that puts the anti-Stalin screed on the ROCOR official website in a new light, doesn’t it? Does this mean that certain parties in the ROCOR are back on Langley‘s payroll (after all, Alexander Lebedeff said, “We were grateful for the money”)? Does this mean that certain parties lied about their purported change of heart? You pays your money and you takes your choice… but I’d say that the trail’s rather clear. Sad, ain’t it? Don’t forget Potapov’s mean-spirited and objectively-false comments about Patriarch Aleksei Ridiger in the Nasty ’90s (at the Georgetown shindig… remember that?)… did he had a real change of heart or was it a case of “Paris is well worth a mass?” Interesting question…

BMD

Please Don’t Lecture Russia

THIS was the REAL USSR… any questions?

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When I first visited Russia more than 30 years ago, it was still part of the USSR. The idea of any independent or critical press, of open debates in a parliament, or of popular demonstrations against government policies that would bring scores of thousands of people into the streets of Moscow, was inconceivable then. Today, Russia has many critics in the West, who accuse it of sliding back into dictatorship. What is their proposed solution? Usually, it is to criticise Russia and its leaders and try to strong-arm them into adopting policies of greater democracy and alleged greater respect for human rights.

These attitudes stem from a pervasive faith shared by liberal Democrats and conservative Republicans in the USA that’s so pervasive, that its greatest believers are totally unaware of how much they’re in thrall to it. They believe that democracy is the only acceptable political system around the world, and that, consequently, the USA should wage a ceaseless ideological crusade, not resting until, at least, all the major nations of the world share the same limitless blessings of a perfect democratic system.

Now, I’m all in favour of democracy myself… I prefer living within a fully-democratic system rather than under a communist, fascist, or repressive theocracy. However, I’m against waging wars to imposing the American, or any other, democratic system, on other nations. I’m equally opposed to a purely-ideological foreign policy that would treat the governments of the world purely according to how Freedom House and similar bodies grade them according to how it assesses their freedoms. This is hardly an anti-American position. George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, John Quincy Adams, and modern Presidents Dwight Eisenhower, Harry Truman, Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, George Herbert Walker Bush, and Bill Clinton believed and acted exactly the same way.

Ironically, the history of the West and the USA over the past three-quarters of a century exposes the dangerous folly of such self-righteous fantasies. Britain and the USA only won World War II against Nazi Germany because they were allies with the USSR under Iosif Stalin. I believe that not one in 100,000 Americans alive today knows or remembers that it was the Red Army, not the American or British forces, which liberated the Nazi extermination complexes of Auschwitz and Majdanek in Poland.

Nor did Western pragmatism… or hypocrisy… end with the destruction of the truly-evil Third Reich. Many still hail President Nixon as an American statesman and peacemaker for his détente policy with the USSR and his outreach to China. Not all the repercussions of the Watergate scandal that forced him to resign can take that away. Yet, Nixon, like Reagan after him, supported the two most corrupt régimes on the planet for decades, which ground hundreds of millions of their unfortunate peoples into degradation and despair. These were the kleptocratic dictatorships of Indonesia under President Suharto and Zaïre (today called the Democratic Republic of the Congo) under President Mobuto Sese Seko.

Russia has come an amazingly long way since I first visited it in the spring thaw season of 1982. That doesn’t mean its political system is the same as those of the USA or the major nations of Western Europe. However, it’s no Indonesia under Suharto or Zaïre under Mobutu either. What’s more, the USA never had any trouble getting along with them. All the moral lecturing of Russia by Western critics misses two crucial points.

First, even if Russia were to relapse back into some form of strict authoritarian government… and so far it hasn’t… that wouldn’t make war or conflict with the USA or the West inevitable. The USA, the British Empire, and the communist USSR were reliable and exceptional successful allies to each other throughout World War II. Then, the USA and the USSR successfully steered clear of any direct conflict in the 44 years of the Cold War from 1945 to 1989. It wasn’t easy; at times, they came dangerously close to war. Second, ensuring Russia remains a democracy won’t be a guarantee of peace with Russia, even if such a starry-eyed, ill-defined, reckless, and irresponsible policy such as intervening in Russia’s internal affairs could ever succeed. For throughout modern history, democracies have often waged war on other countries, including on other democracies. The idea that the best guarantee of world peace is a world filled with, and dominated by, democracies is just another myth.

What the USA and Russia really need is a serious dialogue between their top leaderships aimed at defusing tensions and managing real and unavoidable conflicts of interest. Both nations need to work hard on identifying their areas of mutual interest, and expanding them. The last thing American and other Western leaders need to do is to cave into the mounting hysteria from the think-tanks and the armchair strategists churning out their endless morally-outraged columns for the op-ed pages, and embrace a policy of ideological criticism and name-calling against Russia. The two thermonuclear superpowers need to respect each other and improve their cooperation… the peace of the world demands it.

9 March 2013

Martin Sieff

Voice of Russia World Service

http://english.ruvr.ru/2013_03_09/Please-don-t-lecture-Russia/

Editor’s Note:

Orthodox people should note that Victor Potapov, Alexander Webster, James Paffhausen, and Rod Dreher have sold out to the American Consumerist Dream and to the American Democratic Fantasy. They’re Sergianists (those who suck up to the powers-that-be for the scraps that fall from the high table) of the foulest and worst sort. They’re part of the “mounting hysteria from the think-tanks and the armchair strategists churning out their endless morally-outraged columns for the op-ed pages, and embrace a policy of ideological criticism and name-calling against Russia”. Potapov was/is an open US government propagandist. Webster and Dreher are “stink-tankers”; Paffhausen is tied to the American Enterprise Institute (one of the most Far Right stink-tanks in the District). In short, these people are traitors to the Orthosphere, and we must treat them accordingly.

You can follow HH and his support of Social Justice… or you can follow the above sell-out jabronies who’re supporters of “Greed is Good” and “The Race Goes to the Swiftest” (that’s what support of the contemporary Republican Party means). I’ve chosen… it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to know where I stand… by the way, I’m far from alone…

BMD

USA Awaits Possible Russian Retaliation for Magnitsky Act

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The White House was less than enthusiastic about proposed legislation in the US Congress linking normalised trade relations with Russia to the so-called “Magnitsky Act,” a bill aimed at punishing Russian officials suspected of corruption. However, with the US House of Representatives expected to pass the combined bill on Friday… and the US Senate likely to give its stamp of approval after that… most anticipate that President Barack Obama will sign it into law anyway. The question in Washington now is… “What’s Russia going to do about it?”

American officials, lawmakers, and business lobbies have a broad and united consensus that enacting Permanent Normalised Trade Relations (PNTR) with Russia would provide a boost for American exporters. However, the decision to link PNTR to the Magnitsky Act, named for Sergei Magnitsky, a whistle-blowing lawyer who died in a Moscow jail three years ago, angered top Russian officials, who accuse the USA of meddling in their country’s internal affairs. On Thursday, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs vowed to “react toughly” to this “this unfriendly provocative act”, but it remains unclear exactly what this reaction will be and what impact it might have on bilateral ties.

Cliff Kupchan, head of the Russia and CIS team at Eurasia Group, a political risk consultancy in New York City, said, “The most unfortunate outcome would be a Russian response that disrupts American-Russian economic relations. If Russia responds with some proportionate blacklist of its own, my view is that the issue will be contained. If Russia responds with an extremely-expansive bill based on multiple criteria, it’d negatively affect relations”.

The bill to go before the House of Representatives on Friday would deny visas to… and freeze the assets of… officials suspected of involvement in Magnitsky’s death and other alleged human rights abuses. The Obama administration maintained that the American government already has mechanisms in place to punish such individuals, and has tried in vain to keep the Magnitsky bill separate from the PNTR issues. Russia joined the World Trade Organisation (WTO) in August, and, as a fellow WTO member, the USA must normalise trade relations with Russia in order to allow American businesses to capitalise on opportunities in the Russian market.

Carroll Colley, a Washington-based analyst for Eurasia Group, wrote in an essay published Thursday on the Foreign Policy website, “These advantages could be diminished by punitive bureaucratic measures targeting American companies doing business in Russia as a response to the Magnitsky Act. The measures could include unannounced tax inspections of American companies, delayed or denied licensing or registration procedures, and other bureaucratic complications”. James Collins, a former US ambassador to Russia under President Clinton, told RIA-Novosti, “Human rights have long been an issue in American relations with the USSR and Russia, and it’d be unrealistic for anyone to expect this to change anytime soon. The real question is whether the two governments can find reasonably effective ways to manage both the places where we agree and where we disagree. Or, they don’t, and, instead, let this become a disruptive part of the relationship”.

16 November 2012

Carl Schreck

RIA-Novosti

http://en.rian.ru/world/20121116/177503608.html

Editor’s Note:

What do you think would happen if Russia made a list of the American states where labour organisers are routinely brutalised and killed? What do you think that the Republican Party would do if Russia blacklisted Texas, Arizona, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, and Arkansas for their racially-based efforts to restrict voting by blacks and Mexican-Americans? What do think that the USA would do if Russia barred Rick Perry, Paul Ryan, Donald Trump, Rand Paul, Joe Arapaio, and Sean Hannity from Russia on the grounds that they foment and spread extremism (although they DO such and aren’t ashamed of it, no siree)? (Orthodox people… what do you think would happen if Russia banned JP, Potapov, Rod Dreher, and Josiah Trenham for supporting Hard Right causes and for being religious kooks?) Why, there’d be a hellacious stink! You could smell it all the way from the banks of the Potomac to the Arbat!

In short, this is arrogant Anglo posturing. The people who brought you Wounded Knee, Hiroshima, and Guantánamo should know better. THIS is why the world despises the USA. It isn’t envy… its disgust. We should grow up and act like adults… but shall we?

BMD

Reproducing Dogmas and Stereotypes

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Twenty years ago, on 6 November 1992, newly-elected US President Bill Clinton phoned his Russian counterpart Boris Yeltsin. When asked what they talked about for 20 minutes, Clinton gave journalists an evasive answer, “We just talked about what he was doing, and I said I supported democratic and free market economics in Russia. We had no substantive conversations”. The Russian side was a bit more open… the Kremlin press service quoted Yeltsin as saying, “I think, Mr Clinton, that my warm and good relationship with George Bush won’t prevent our relations from being even better. The boldness in politics and firm rejection of old dogmas and stereotypes that you stand for, match well with the principles of our Russian-American relations”.

Yeltsin was probably being a little disingenuous in referring to his warm relations with Bush. During his presidency, Bush Sr clearly favoured then-Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachyov during his intense rivalry with the future Russian leader. It was only when it became clear that Gorbachyov lost his grip on power that the White House switched its backing to Yeltsin. Moscow pinned high hopes on Clinton… during his election campaign, he criticised Bush Sr for his reluctance to provide large-scale aid to Russia and promised to adopt an entirely new approach to the issue. It came as no surprise when, shortly after the election, one of Clinton’s associates, in Moscow on an unofficial visit, was essentially presented with an ultimatum… “Help us now, or else we’ll be in trouble and that’ll hurt you, too”.

That December, the Philadelphia Inquirer wrote sarcastically, “There’s a fearful symmetry in the pace at which President-elect Bill Clinton is assembling his administration and Russian President Boris Yeltsin is dismantling his. Just as the ‘new ideas’ people are being introduced in Little Rock, they’re being thrown out the door in Moscow”. Nonetheless, Clinton backed Russia, seeking to make its “democratic transformation” one of the crowning achievements of his presidency. This he failed to achieve. Clinton eventually became extremely disappointed in his “friend Boris”, and at the end of his term, he had to deal with Vladimir Putin, whom he saw as a symbol of the fact that Russia was heading in completely the wrong direction. However, Putin established a good personal relationship with George W Bush, underpinned from the very start by their mutual desire to open a new chapter in USA-Russia relations. However, at the interstate level, the dialogue ran into a complete dead end. Barack Obama revived it, but the limited agenda of “the reset” was fulfilled fairly quickly without delivering any qualitative shift.

During the last 20 years, relations between the two countries have come full circle. Mitt Romney’s description of Russia as the USA’s “Number One Geopolitical Foe” was the most striking statement made about Russia during the recent election campaign. Although even his supporters took this statement with a pinch of irony, nothing more meaningful was said about Russia. In parallel, Moscow decided to get rid of the legacy of the 1990s once and for all. On 1 October, Russia ended the activities of USAID, with whom it signed an agreement in 1992. It also curtailed the Nunn-Lugar programme, under which Washington funded the dismantling of Russia’s excessive nuclear warheads, obsolete missiles, and chemical weapons.

The same logic motivated both decisions… Russia will no longer sign agreements as a junior partner or accept foreign involvement in its domestic affairs. We’ll resolve our problems on our own, and you’ll have to deal with Russia as it is today and on an equal footing. However, the USA has almost no tradition of equal partnerships. There was a kind of partnership, albeit a very peculiar one, during the Cold War… nuclear parity. Rather than leading to cooperation, this prevented conflict, thus, ensuring equality. On all other issues, the USA builds its external relations on the basis of the master-slave principle. Moreover, any partner either needs to sign up to its idea of the socio-political order, or at least recognise it, and agree to help introduce it as quickly as possible. Modern Russia doesn’t intend to accept either of these conditions. Russian-American contacts are in for a radical overhaul.

Russia isn’t so aggressive as to justify a need for deterrence against it, which Romney clearly feels is necessary. Russia won’t expect aid from the USA, as had been the case in the past. Nor will it try to match American-established criteria of democracy. Russia remains an influential global power that one can’t ignore, despite George “Dubya” Bush’s attempts to do just that. However, its position in the world is too amorphous, and, above all, has the aim of retaining a free hand that’d allow it to build systemic relations. Moscow isn’t strong enough to hope for full equality. These are objective facts that don’t depend on who’s in the White House or the Kremlin.

The two countries must realise that they’ll never enjoy linear relations… they’ll neither be unequivocal foes or genuine allies. Nor will they be soulmates or ideological opposites. A desire to achieve full clarity, in whatever field, undermines all attempts to create a solid foundation for relations, whereas a willingness to be flexible on current issues makes it possible to achieve concrete results. In this context Russia, above all, needs to overcome its fixation on the humiliation of the recent past, and the USA must realise that the primacy of its values can’t be a prerequisite for cooperation in the 21st century.

No long-term agenda accommodates the potentially-crucial changes that lie ahead for both countries. Today’s agenda will take on new accents only when other issues come to the fore, such as the situation in Asia, the prospects of the commercial development of the Arctic, the reform of the nuclear non-proliferation system, etc. These issues require serious discussion, which, for now, nobody seems willing to conduct. To quote Yeltsin’s words from his conversation with Clinton 20 years ago, we need a “firm rejection of old dogmas and stereotypes”. If we don’t change anything, our relations will continue going round in concentric circles of cooling off, détente, and resets, whoever the US President is.

8 November 2012

Fyodor Lukyanov

RIA-Novosti

http://en.rian.ru/columnists/20121108/177270475.html