CIA misled on interrogation program, Senate report says - The Washington Post

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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-26769481 Vladimir Putin: The rebuilding of 'Soviet' Russia 28 March 2014 Last updated at 00:12 The world was stunned when Russia invaded Crimea, but should it have been? Author and journalist Oliver Bullough says President Vladimir Putin never kept secret his intention to restore Russian power - what's less clear, he says, is how long the country's rise can continue. On 16 August 1999, the members of Russia's parliament - the State Duma - met to approve the candidacy of a prime minister. They heard the candidate's speech, they asked him a few questions, and they dutifully confirmed him in the position. This was President Boris Yeltsin's fifth premier in 16 months, and one confused party leader got the name wrong. He said he would support the candidacy of Stepashin - the surname of the recently sacked prime minister - rather than that of his little-known successor, before making an embarrassing correction. If even leading Duma deputies couldn't remember the new prime minister's name, you couldn't blame the rest of the world if it didn't pay much attention to his speech. He was unlikely to head the Russian government for more than a couple of months anyway, so why bother? That man was a former KGB officer, Vladimir Putin, and he has been in charge of the world's largest country, as president or prime minister, ever since. Few realised it at the time, because few were listening, but that speech provided a blueprint for pretty much everything he has done, for how he would re-shape a country that was perilously close to total collapse. The little-known Putin became prime minister Just 364 days previously, Russia had defaulted on its debt. Salaries for public sector workers and pensions were being paid months late, if at all. Basic infrastructure was collapsing. The country's most prized assets belonged to a handful of well-connected "oligarchs", who ran the country like a private fiefdom. The once-mighty Russian army had lost a war in Chechnya, a place with fewer inhabitants than Russia had soldiers. Three former Warsaw Pact allies had joined Nato, bringing the Western alliance up to Russia's borders. Meanwhile, the country was led by Yeltsin, an irascible drunkard in fragile health. The situation was desperate, but Putin had a plan. "I cannot cover all the tasks facing the government in this speech. But I do know one thing for sure: not one of those tasks can be performed without imposing basic order and discipline in this country, without strengthening the vertical chain," he told the assembled parliamentarians. Born in Leningrad in 1952, Putin came of age in the Soviet Union's golden years, the period after the USSR's astonishing triumph in World War Two. Sputnik, the hydrogen bomb, Laika the dog and Yuri Gagarin all bore witness to Soviet ingenuity. The crushing of Hungary in 1956 and Czechoslovakia in 1968 bore witness to Soviet resolve. Soviet citizens were enjoying a time of peace and prosperity. Life was stable. People got paid. The world respected them. Everyone knew their place. When Putin spoke to the Duma, his homeland was a different, and less respected place. He spoke the language of a man who yearned for the lost certainties, who longed for a time when Moscow was to be reckoned with. He did not say it explicitly, but he was clearly stung by Russia's failure to stop Nato driving the forces of its ally, Serbia, out of Kosovo just months previously. "Russia has been a great power for centuries, and remains so. It has always had and still has legitimate zones of interest ... We should not drop our guard in this respect, neither should we allow our opinion to be ignored," he said. His domestic policy was to restore stability, to end what he called the "revolutions", that had brought Russia low. His foreign policy was to regain Russia's place in world affairs. Those two core aims have driven everything he has done since. If only people had been listening, none of his actions would have come as a surprise to them. Since then, he has seized every opportunity history has offered him, from the attacks of 11 September 2001 to the Ukrainian Revolution of 2013, in his bid to secure his aims. He has been tactically astute and ruthlessly opportunistic. At home and abroad, he wants Russia to regain the prestige it held when he was growing up. The obvious place to start his campaign was in Chechnya, symbol of Russia's collapse. The Chechens had defeated Yeltsin's attempt to crush their self-declared independence, but it proved a bitter victory. The war devastated Chechnya's people, economy and infrastructure. Chechnya became a sink of kidnapping, violence and crime, and - until Putin - no-one did anything about it. Finally, for long-suffering patriotic Russians, here was a man not only able to pay their pensions, but prepared to get his hands dirty to defend their homeland. By the turn of the millennium, when Yeltsin stood down, and appointed Putin acting president in his place, the unknown prime minister's public approval rating was above 70% a level it has barely dipped below ever since. Human rights groups and some Western governments accused Putin of breaking Russian and international law in his pursuit of his Chechen opponents. (The European Court of Human Rights has found against Russia in 232 "right to life" cases, effectively ruling that Russia repeatedly committed murder during its Chechen campaign.) But that has done nothing to dent Putin's popularity. In Chechnya, hundreds of soldiers and thousands of Chechens died. Hundreds of thousands of Chechens fled to claim asylum outside Russia, but Russia's territorial integrity was secured, and Putin had begun his task of restoring Russian prestige. Russian troops in Chechnya in 2001 After 11 September 2001, Putin recast his Chechen campaign as part of the global fight against terrorism, thus muting international criticism of his troops' conduct. He became briefly close to President George W Bush - who even claimed to have glimpsed Putin's soul - until the Iraq War drove them apart. In Iraq, Putin insisted that international law must be upheld - no invasion could be allowed without approval from the United Nations Security Council, and that approval was not forthcoming. At home, he crushed the most powerful of the oligarchs, first those who controlled media assets, thus taming the lively television scene, and then in 2003 police arrested Mikhail Khodorkovsky, the richest man in the country. His oil company was dismembered and bought by a state oil company. He was jailed in a process so egregiously predetermined that Amnesty International declared him to be a prisoner of conscience. "I think it became absolutely clear when Khodorkovsky was arrested, that Putin was not going after the oligarchs to reassert the power of democratic civil society over these titans. He was doing it as part of building an authoritarian regime," says Chrystia Freeland, the FT's bureau chief in Moscow when Putin came to power, and now a Liberal member of the Canadian parliament. (She is also one of the 13 Canadians barred from entering Russia this week in response to Canada's imposition of sanctions against Russian officials.) Putin kept a tight grip on the parliamentary elections at the end of 2003, and his allies gained two-thirds of the Duma. He praised the poll as a step towards "strengthening democracy" - monitors from the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe called it "overwhelmingly distorted". In just four years, Putin had crushed Chechnya, reined in the free media and the oligarchs, gained a parliament that would do whatever he wanted, and shown that Russia had a strong voice in international affairs. "He says what he thinks and does what he says - at least much more than probably any other contemporary politician or statesman. Western analysts and politicians always try to uncover some sort of false bottom in his statements, when there often isn't one. That applies to many other Soviet leaders including Stalin - at least in the run-up to and during WW2," says Dmitry Linnik, London bureau chief of the Voice of Russia radio. "He is a nationalist - in the federal 'Russian', not ethnic 'Russian', sense of the word. That is his biggest driving force, I think - not hunger for power or personal ambition." Putin restored some of the Soviet symbols, such as the five-pointed star But Freeland disagrees. "I think he has taken a series of decisions, quite rationally from his narrow personal point of view, that this kind of autocratic regime gives him the most personal power and personal wealth," she says. There was one thing missing to make the world of his childhood complete: an ideology. Putin restored some Soviet symbols. He brought back the Soviet national anthem and Soviet emblems, and praised the Soviet triumph in World War Two. But he embraced pre-Soviet themes too. He befriended the Russian Orthodox Church, and name-checked anti-Soviet philosophers like Ivan Ilyin, whose remains he had repatriated to Russia and buried with honour. This trend towards a uniquely Russian form of conservatism accelerated after the wave of protests against electoral fraud that struck Moscow in 2011-2, which alienated Putin from Russia's liberals. Among his favourite ideologues is Vladimir Yakunin, an old friend, a fellow KGB graduate, an Orthodox believer and now head of Russian Railways, one of the country's most strategically significant companies. "Russia is not between Europe and Asia. Europe and Asia are to the left and right of Russia. We are not a bridge between them but a separate civilisational space, where Russia unites the civilisational communities of East and West," Yakunin said in a recent interview with Itar-Tass. Last week, he was added to the US sanctions list for "membership of the Russian leadership's inner circle", following the annexation of Crimea. The idea of Russia being separate from but equal to the West is convenient, since it allows the Kremlin to reject Western criticism of its elections, its court cases, its foreign policy, as biased and irrelevant. Many of Putin's friends, though dismissive of the West's economics, politics, values and structures, are, however, much attached to its comforts. Both of Yakunin's sons live in Western Europe - one in London, one in Switzerland - and his grandchildren are growing up there. According to the anti-corruption campaigner, Alexei Navalny, Yakunin has built himself a palace outside Moscow using foreign limestone and building materials brought in from Germany - a strange step for a man supposedly wedded to creating a Russian economy independent of the West. Putin too has espoused principles, then dropped them when they proved inconvenient. In Iraq in 2003, he made a stand in defence of international law, opposing any invasion without UN approval. In Georgia in 2008, he sent in the troops without even pretending to consult with the Security Council. Last year, intervention in Syria was out of the question. This year, intervention in Ukraine is justified and unimpeachably legitimate. It may be that principles have never been the issue - and that Putin's objective has always been to maximise Russian power, and to defy Western attempts to rein Russia in. "We have every reason to assume that the infamous policy of containment, conducted in the 18th, 19th and 20th Centuries, continues today. They are constantly trying to sweep us into a corner because we have an independent position," said Putin in his speech last week announcing the annexation of Crimea, a speech that repeated all his points from 1999, but with 15 years worth of additional resentment. "If you compress the spring all the way to its limit, it will snap back hard. You must always remember this." It is not easy re-shaping a country on your own, and Putin has needed the assistance of one key group within Russian society. While he has cracked down on independent journalists, businessmen and politicians, he has relied on state officials to make sure his ideas are implemented. They have been well rewarded for their help. Wages for top officials increased last year by 20%, four times the increase in the general budget. Putin's spending binge means that, for the budget to balance, Brent crude must now average around $117 a barrel, more than five times the level needed in 2006, according to analysis from Deutsche Bank. Even that is not enough for top officials. Interior Minister Vladimir Kolokontsev said last week that, in 2013, the average bribe in Russia had doubled to $4,000. Last year, Transparency International gave Russia 127th place on its Corruption Perception Index, rating it as corrupt as Pakistan, Mali and Madagascar. "Putin has really painted himself into a corner by destroying every independent source of power in Russia. He now has only the bureaucracy to rely on, and must keep increasing its funding to keep ensuring its loyalty," says Ben Judah, the British author of Fragile Empire, a study of Putin's Russia. "Eventually, the money is going to run out, and then he will find himself in the same position Soviet leaders were in by the late 1980s, forced to confront political and economic crises, while trying to hold the country together. He looks strong now, but his Kremlin is built on the one thing in Russia doesn't control: the price of oil." Putin has succeeded in building a version of the country of his childhood, one that can act independently in the world, and one where dissent is controlled and the Kremlin's power unchallenged. But that is a double-edged sword, because the Soviet Union collapsed for a reason, and a Russia recreated in its image risks sharing its fate. According to Vladimir Bukovsky, a dissident who spent a decade in Soviet prisons before his exile to the West in 1976, Putin is totally genuine when he says the disintegration of the Soviet Union was a "geopolitical catastrophe". Putin with the head of the Russian army's main department of combat preparation in early March "He does not understand that the collapse of the Soviet system was predetermined, therefore he believes his mission is to restore the Soviet system as soon as possible," he says. As a middle-ranking KGB officer who loved the Soviet Union, Putin lacked the perspective of senior officers, who knew full well the Soviet Union collapsed under the weight of its own inefficiency rather than because of Western plotting, Bukovsky says. "It leads him exactly to… repeat the same mistakes. He wants this whole country to be controlled by one person from the Kremlin, which will lead to disaster," he says. Putin's decision to invade Crimea was taken quickly and impulsively, by a small group of his favoured top officials. That means Putin has no one to warn him of the long-term consequences of his actions, and until he finds out for himself, he will maintain his course. That means relations with the West will remain uncomfortable, especially in areas he considers to be his "zone of legitimate interests". But we can't say we weren't warned. Oliver Bullough is Caucasus editor at the Institute of War and Peace Reporting. His most recent book is The Last Man in Russia, detailing the demographic decline of the Russian nation. Follow @BBCNewsMagazine on Twitter and on Facebook The article below was published before Facebook or twitter http://www.unc.edu/depts/diplomat/archives_roll/2004_04-06/dolan_bush/dolan_bush.html America and empire Manifest destiny warmed up? America, it is said, is the world's latest imperial power. Don't believe it Aug 14th 2003 WHAT is the shelf-life of an idea? Just a few short months ago, the talk—and not just in Washington, DC—was of empire, America's that is. Even before the invasion of Iraq, pundits of all stripes were casting aside their coyness to proclaim that America was the latest imperial power to bestride the world. Today, with tribulations besetting the new Romans in both Afghanistan and Iraq, their most recent conquests, the chorus has died down, but the idea is far from dead. Too many people have invested too much in it. For several years, after all, commentators have been announcing the discovery of an American empire. Books and articles have poured forth, professors and pundits have pondered the implications— and a surprising number have welcomed the new role. "No need to run away from the label," argues Max Boot, a fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York: "America's destiny is to police the world." Advertisement Behind the claim lies a conjunction of circumstances. First is the sheer scale of America's power. While the sole superpower remains more than ready to put its technological prowess to military use, its western allies, wearied by centuries of fighting, have been quick to cash in their post-cold-war peace dividends and turn to more pacific pursuits. Russia is diminished. China still lags behind. America's pre-eminence in the skies, at sea and on land is thus unchallenged. In terms of both brute force and gee-whizz gadgetry, it leaves even its nearest competitors standing, or rather quaking. Matching this military might, runs the argument, is an unrivalled degree of economic power. Throw together all the output from Hollywood and Silicon Valley to Wall Street and Tin Pan Alley, and you have a commercial empire that would have been the envy of the British East India Company or Cecil Rhodes. And with "hard" power and "soft" power combined, you have influence on a scale never seen before. The polite term for it is hegemony, but in reality, as Mr Boot says, it is Globocop. What other country divides the world up into five military commands with four-star generals to match, keeps several hundred thousand of its legionaries on active duty in 137 countries—and is now unafraid to use them? For, stung by the events of September 11th, America is no longer shy about spilling blood, even its own. Weren't the Afghan and Iraqi wars largely designed to show just that? To power and global reach can therefore be added another imperial characteristic: an actual desire to sally forth and act. Even before Americans were attacked on September 11th 2001, influential voices were calling for a more activist foreign policy. Some were what Ivo Daalder, a fellow at the Brookings Institution in Washington, DC, calls "assertive nationalists", some were "democratic imperialists". Both groups were impatient with the constraints imposed by treaties, multilateral action and America's membership of international clubs like the UN. Both wanted to see America hit back when attacked. Both thought the Clinton administration had been timid, if not craven, in defence of American interests. If, before September 11th, George Bush belonged to either of these groups, it was to the assertive nationalists—along with men like Dick Cheney, his vice-president, and Donald Rumsfeld, his secretary of defence. The president's instincts were to take robust action if necessary, but to avoid foreign entanglements. In particular, even as a candidate, he had been hostile to the idea of "nation-building" (correctly, state-building) abroad, an ambition more closely identified with the democratic imperialists, also known as neoconservatives. Later, though, Mr Bush started to come round to that idea. September 11th, he was to say a year after the event, "taught us that weak states, like Afghanistan, can pose as great a danger to our national interests as strong states." Accordingly, "We will extend the peace by encouraging free and open societies on every continent." So there it is. The American empire passes the duck test: it not only looks like a duck and walks like a duck, it also quacks like a duck. And, unfashionable as the idea may seem, it has been given a remarkably warm reception. Even non-Americans seem well-disposed. Over a year ago Robert Cooper, a British diplomat, called for "a new kind of imperialism", albeit one that would be provided by the "post-modern European Union". Michael Ignatieff, a Canadian now at Harvard, has also been ready to argue that "imperialism doesn't stop being necessary just because it is politically incorrect," though not for him another European imperium. Doubtful as he is about the enterprise, he can see no alternative to American leadership. Many like Mr Ignatieff are ready to lend support to the idea of an American empire, moved by a desire to bring people living in failed states out of their disorder and misery, and believing that only America can run such an empire. Others are more concerned to deny terrorists a base from which to launch attacks on what was once the inviolable fortress of the West. All take succour from recent, generally favourable reassessments of the British empire, notably the one offered in a book (and television series) by Niall Ferguson, a Scottish historian now at New York University. "What the British empire proved", writes Mr Ferguson, "is that empire is a form of international government that can work—and not just for the benefit of the ruling power." The British empire, he suggests, "though not without blemish", may have been the least bloody path to modernity for its subjects. Such thoughts are still too controversial for senior members of the Bush administration to utter aloud. "We don't seek an empire," avers Mr Bush himself. "Our nation is committed to freedom for ourselves and for others." With equal vigour, Mr Rumsfeld insists: "We're not imperialistic." But after one regime-changing war in Afghanistan and another in Iraq, the administration seems to be gathering the wool of empire, and doing so with a civilising mission that sounds pretty imperial. If Mr Bush does not state the aims explicitly, the neocons feel no such embarrassment. For them, Afghanistan and Iraq are just the start. The transformation of the entire Middle East—Iran, Syria, Saudi Arabia, the lot—must now ensue. In logic, once that is democratised under American tutelage, other regions will have to follow. The United States has long felt free to intervene in Latin America; even before September 11th it was being drawn into Colombia. The Balkans, after a more direct intervention, are benefiting from even starker American supervision (or indirect rule, to use the imperial term, via the EU and UN). Can parts of Asia and Africa be far behind? Perhaps they can. It depends, of course, on what is meant by empire, and therefore on what counts as a constituent part. In one sense, America has had an empire for years. In pursuit of its "manifest destiny", which would have been called Lebensraum (room to grow in) in 1930s Germany, 19th-century American expansionists laid claim to most of their continent. Some parts, such as Alaska and the huge swathe of land between the Rockies and the Mississippi that came with the Louisiana Purchase, were bought. Others were acquired more traditionally: California, Nevada, Utah, New Mexico, Arizona and parts of Colorado and Wyoming all fell into America's lap at the end of the 1846-48 war that President James Polk had baited Mexico into fighting, chiefly to obtain California. A second imperial phase came after the Spanish-American war of 1898. This "splendid little war", in the words of the secretary of state, John Hay, delivered Cuba, Puerto Rico, Guam and the Philippines. The expansionist impulse continued under Teddy Roosevelt, whose big stick (carry one, while talking softly, he advised) and amendments to the Monroe Doctrine (his corollary proclaimed the United States' right to intervene anywhere in Latin America to prevent the Europeans doing so) have helped to make him a hero in today's Washington. A man of pre-emptive action—grab Hawaii, or see it threaten America's west coast, he argued—Roosevelt is Mr Bush's favourite president, and hugely admired by Mr Rumsfeld too. But soon America was drawing back, first under Roosevelt himself and then under Woodrow Wilson, whose "14 points" set out an idealistic programme for a just peace after the first world war, based on collective security and national self-determination. Yet by the end of the next world war, America, the only country to emerge unambiguously strengthened, had entered a third imperial phase. It was formally in occupation in West Germany and Japan, and it was the de facto power in a variety of places from Dutch Indonesia to the Belgian Congo, from most of Latin America to much of Indochina. If these earlier imperiums were empires, then perhaps America has indeed acquired a new one. But if the imperial attribution is to mean anything, an empire has to have at least two characteristics besides those of huge might and a willingness to use it. An empire must also be a hierarchical system, in which ultimate control resides at the centre, in this case Washington, DC, and all the colonies, client states, satrapies, sepoys, slaves and helots must understand that. And it must be enduring. True, territories can be acquired one by one for a series of different reasons, as Britain's first colonies were. But, as Adam Smith said, "every empire aims at immortality." In other words, running colonies collectively as an empire requires the intention of either continuous control or, more likely, some sort of transformation, which is where state-building comes in, ideally laced with a bit of missionary zeal. The thrills of empire are not those of the one-night stand. In short, the empire now proclaimed in America's name is at best a dull duck, at worst a dead duck, unless it is to be a big strong drake that intends to throw its weight around for quite a while. And this in turn raises two difficulties for the concept of a new American empire. One is that the subjects won't like it. The other is that Americans won't either. Theory, meet practice For the truth of the first proposition, take a look at Iraq. Four months after the fall of Baghdad, America still faces what one of its own top generals has called "war, however you describe it". Even at the outset, the happy natives failed to greet their liberators quite as joyfully as some had so obviously hoped. Yes, Saddam Hussein was loathed; no, the Iraqis would not die for him in any numbers; but now, please leave us to get on with our own affairs. No matter that the Iraqis are in no position to run their own affairs. They still do not want their country run for them. Resistance is encouraged by the emperor's failure to fix the plumbing, stop the looting and get the lights back on, never mind the constant indignities that go with running an empire: arrests, roadblocks and house-to-house searches that offend the modesty of devout Muslim women. The combination of cock-up and hostility has not only cost the new administration its first boss, Jay Garner. It has also led America to reverse its plans to start cutting the number of its occupying troops. A constitution and free elections are promised for next year, but the progress towards democracy has been much slower than was at first hoped. Just a few teething troubles? Up to a point, certainly. But Afghanistan, too, suggests that the imperial role is neither popular nor easy. Nearly two years after a singularly successful toppling of the Taliban, the country is still largely in the hands of warlords of dubious allegiance, each with his own militia (see article). They pay nominal obeisance to the proconsul, President Hamid Karzai, but pay him his dues either grudgingly or not at all, preferring to keep the revenues they collect for their own militias. The 5,000 or so peacekeepers, the emperor's proxy army, scarcely dare leave the capital, Kabul, though they are now under NATO command. In the provinces, meanwhile, anything may be going on. The UN has just said that it is suspending work in the south after a series of attacks, and the Taliban are talking of new offensives in the north. What price commitment? All this is grist to the mill of the true believers in America's imperial mission. It just goes to show that an early exit after a quick war solves nothing. If the peace is to endure, if the rule of law is to be established, if democratic institutions are to take root, you had better be prepared for a lengthy undertaking, with men, money and limitless patience. Such has been the lesson of Bosnia, Kosovo and Northern Ireland—a lesson yet to be learnt perhaps in Congo, Sierra Leone and countless other hell-holes less pressing on the western conscience. The neo-imperialists have logic on their side when they argue that regime change alone is not enough, and, to their credit, they say they are ready for the long haul. Mr Boot, one of their foremost advocates, believes America is too. The price is affordable, he argues, and, in its containment of the Soviet Union and other policies, America has shown it can sustain a commitment over long decades. It is a beguiling argument. But a contradiction lies at the heart of the imperialists' concept. Imperialism and democracy are at odds with each other. The one implies hierarchy and subordination, the other equality and freedom of choice. People nowadays are not willing to bow down before an emperor, even a benevolent one, in order to be democratised. They will protest, and the ensuing pain will be felt by the imperial power as well as by its subjects. For Americans, the pain will not be just a matter of budget deficits and body bags; it will also be a blow to the very heart of what makes them American—their constitutional belief in freedom. Freedom is in their blood; it is integral to their sense of themselves. It binds them together as nothing else does, neither ethnicity, nor religion, nor language. And it is rooted in hostility to imperialism—the imperial rule of George III. Americans know that empires lack democratic legitimacy. Indeed, they once had a tea party to prove it. Some imperialists may be untroubled by such thoughts. Throughout their imperial history, the British, a rather steak-and-kidney sort of people, not much interested in constitutional concepts, would generally fight to defend their own freedom but did not feel obliged to introduce it in their colonies so long as democracy was in prospect for their subjects one distant day. They were helped in this happy procrastination by powerful practical interests (they exported both settlers and capital to their colonies), by a degree of racism, and by a sustained sense of semi-religious mission. And despite the many hardships, those who ran it also had fun with their empire (lots of dressing up with funny hats, playing polo and shooting tigers); and it was a commercial enterprise ("Trade follows the flag," noted Rhodes). Little, if any of this applies to Americans. The neocons may have the missionary zeal, but even this is likely to pall in the face of setbacks. There is certainly no zeal to bear the financial burden: Mr Bush's latest budget was drawn up without any money at all for Afghanistan, and the costs are rising in Iraq (to nearly $4 billion a month, just for the soldiery), even as Mr Rumsfeld says more troops may be needed. Unlike most empires of old, the United States is an importer, these days, both of capital and of migrants. America has changed since September 11th. The new mood allows for more nationalism, more assertiveness, less patience with allies, a greater readiness to go it alone. But there is no appetite to spend a lifetime in a sweaty country in the service of a noble cause. The memories of Vietnam, where every effort to withdraw or hand over to the locals seemed to lead to further entanglement, have not departed. And though the rhetorical heat may now be turned on Iran and Syria, Mr Rumsfeld and his fellow fire-eaters know full well that Americans are not ready for another invasion. Even if, hallelujah, regime change in such countries could be effected peacefully, would the United States really be prepared to shoulder the white man's burden across the Middle East? It is unlikely, to say the least; the imperial idea is a big exaggeration, like previous fads. It was fashionable, after all, to declare history at a close not so long ago. The new battlegrounds would be markets, said some pundits. Commerce, ideas and information were the weapons of the modern world; military might was for the pterodactyls. To be sure, America is now going through an imperial phase, but this one has more in common with its earlier imperial phases than with the imperial eras of Britain, Byzantium or Rome. If the assertive nationalists and the democratic imperialists have come together over Iraq, that does not mean the administration has signed up for the entire neocon agenda. And as for the foreign-policy pundits, in time they will move on to a new idea. That does not mean Mr Bush is wrong to think that democracy is the best hope for the world, though it will surely have to take different forms in different places. He is right. But he is also right in disavowing any imperial intentions. America will have to promote its aims some other way, probably by leading multilateral action. Empire is simply not the American way. If the United States has to intervene in places like Afghanistan and Iraq, and then stay on, it will not enjoy the experience. Running the place, it will discover, is nasty and brutish, so it had better also be short. Good or bad, that is not what most people mean by an imperium. Sent from Yahoo Mail for iPhone

Comparative reading,

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Obama Face Reality?

I am glad I have not gone crazy, at least I am not the only one noticing this hypocrisy. In this age of media, we (US and Russia as well as others) will be well advised to not think that their deeds will go unnoticed. As Obama meets today with leaders gulf states, it only high lights the duplicity of the US foreign policy, one standard for friends another for the rest. Our "high aims" of bringing democracy to the middle east with this attitude has cost hundreds of thousands of lives in that region. Another highlight that US missed was when our people were at the UN whining about Saddam not obeying the UN resolutions, who are we kidding? https://www.facebook.com/Worldmeets.US/posts/10203612638858981 Russia and America: United in Flouting International Law (Diario De Noticias, Portugal) "In his speech responding to Russia's argument that if Kosovo was an exception, than Crimea is as well, Obama said that where Crimea's Russian-speaking population was not in danger, in Kosovo, thousands of people were persecuted and killed, and that the conclusion of each crisis was substantially different. Obama, however, left out something essential and common to Washington and Moscow. That in both cases, the U.S. and Russia both do as they please and always act in accordance with their own geostrategic interests." EDITORIAL Translated By Brandi Miller March 28, 2014 Portugal - Diário de Notícias - Original Article (Portuguese) At the Palais Des Beaux Arts in Brussels, President Obama offers his strongest criticism of Russia's annexation of Crimea, countering the argument that America is hypocritical because of NATO's actions in Kosovo, or its own actions in Iraq, or Mar. 26. RUSSIA TODAY VIDEO: Say What? Obama Claims 'Iraq Invasion Not as Bad as Crimea', Mar. 26, 00:03:25 The U.S. president the other day responded to Russia's argument that if Kosovo was an exception, than Crimea is as well. Barack Obama noted that, contrary to Crimea, where the Russian-speaking population was not in danger, in Kosovo, thousands of people were persecuted and killed, and that the conclusion of each crisis was substantially different. The territory of Kosovo took almost a decade to achieve independence in a process that involved the United Nations. Posted By Worldmeets.US In Crimea, a parliament met in closed session and under the threat of arms, declared unilateral independence and immediately announced a referendum with the results known in advance: integration into Russia. Obama stressed that the resort to force is "proof of less influence, not more," particularly before neighbors of much smaller critical mass than Russia. Obama, however, left out something essential and common to Washington and Moscow. That in both cases, the U.S. and Russia both do as they please and always act in accordance with their own geostrategic interests. http://worldmeets.us/ http://worldmeets.us/diariodenoticias000013.shtml#.UzYgN5W9Kc1#ixzz2xJKBQIVB Sent from Yahoo Mail for iPhone

Crash of Malaysian jetliner

http://www.cnn.com/2014/03/08/world/asia/malaysia-airlines-plane-missing/index.html?c=&page=0 Police in Italy said the man's passport was stolen last year. A U.S. intelligence official said authorities are aware of reporting about lost or stolen passports used by passengers on the missing flight. "No nexus to terrorism yet," the official said, "although that's by no means definitive. We're still tracking." http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_France_Flight_447 http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pablo_Dreyfus Another case of stolen passports http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassination_of_Mahmoud_Al-Mabhouh Sent from Yahoo Mail for iPhone

Crash of Malaysian 777

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Murder in FL, again

Almost a year ago, I had a long discussion on "Woodrow Guthrie" page about murder. Actually it was a discussion about, if abortion is murder, I proposed that abortion can not be considered a Murder since we have not yet defined what a murder actually is. Not that I am taking a position here for or against abortion, all I want is a legal definition, clear as day definition of what is murder. In recent cases such as Amanda Knox, or Ethan Couch we have seen the disagreement as to what is murder. Then of course we have OJ, Zimmerman and Casey Anthony famously, so may want to read my discussion at the link to my blog. http://tombstone001.blogspot.com/2013/01/is-abortion-murder.html?m=0 Today another Florida jury refused to convict someone that had killed someone with his actions (notice I did not say murder), so what is murder? Or is it when a murder is a murder? Can we define murder. Sent from Yahoo Mail for iPhone

Which way is Makkah?

A letter to ICNA

Please read this missive in whole before discarding. 

I am given to believe that many of you on this counsel are literate, some even really smart so I bring it to before I publish this to the public. 

Whatever my faith or beliefs I do not claim to be more knowledge than any other. I am only humbled by what I know, what I was given a chance to do in my life. I can speak read and write Arabic, I have read Quran, in Arabic, English and Urdu, Tafsir and Fikah, All volumes of Bukhari. I had the chance to perform Hajj twice and Umrah five times. I am not pious I was just at the right place, don't be overly impressed, I am not. 

Sura Yasin gives the example of peoples to whom two prophets were sent and the people refused to acknowledge, and so on, you know the story, is it you, the Muslims of today?

Then there in sura Bakra, it is told, " it matters not wether you face East or West, it goes on to say that it is not the saying of prayers but the life you live and the deeds you do that are your salvation, but who cares. Right! 

What brings me to write today is this question of which way is Kabba. It boggles the mind not just that after 1400 years, there is a question, but after 1400 years the great Muslim nation is still trying to explain what God intended and still coming up with new and creative BS.

If any of you are educated in basic geometry,  just a joke, I know you all are, then draw a triangle, any shape, now you know that this triangle will stay the same shape anywhere in the universe, the angles at the corner will be the same, unless of course you MOVE one of these points. You can bend it, roll it, tilt it whatever you like the triangle will NOT change unless you physically change it in some way. You can now cut out the triangle and paste it on a ball and roll the ball around, the triangle (the angles between point A, B and C do not change. 

This brings me to the point,  we consider North Pole the starting point, since angle from the US to Kabba can not be determined without an exterior reference point and we have used North pole, we could use any point anywhere in the universe. (I wonder why there ever was even a question, but I digress).

When the earth is tilted then everything on earth gets tilted thus the north pole tilts 22 degrees and everything else also gets tilted and the angle from the US to the Kabba stays the same, when we look at the globe, we are looking at an optical illusion that the Kabba has somehow shifted to the north by 22 degrees when it actually did not, we ignore the FACT that the triangle has remained the same. 

Instead of creating new problems where the problem does not exist, it will be better that we learn something from Islam and then practice it also. When it is said that " do not sell your faith for little value" the Koran admonishes the people against lying, cheating, bribery, or marrying ones sons and daughters for economic benefits or blaming the innocent for your crimes, or abusing your workers, but that is another topic  altogether. 

Do not address me as "brother" I shudder at the thought. 

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Thank you Mr Mandela

http://m.news24.com/news24/SouthAfrica/News/Thank-you-for-the-gift-of-Madiba-20131206

The last century gave us many great leaders, as always and all through the history,  it also gave us really bad ones. There were some that fought for human rights and freedoms, some that wished to oppress humanity for their purposes and some that stood by and watched, only for their own selfish economic ( not to say racist too) interests. Where we go from here? At least Three "terrorists" won the Nobel peace prize in the 20th century. 

Economic oppression of the masses continues. And it is not the other races anymore. Thanks to globalization economic oppression is worldwide with " no nation left behind".  The bankers and the IMF cheer the austerity in the EU countries, in the thirties 25% unemployment was the "Great Depression",  South African blacks rose up against the whites for similar economic injustices. Today the masses in Europe in the Americas, in China and Russia and in Asia are being economically enslaved and their countries economically raped and there are no Mandelas, no Kings and no Gandhis. All we have is the likes of Reagan, Thatcher and Putin, it does not bode well for the future of humanity. While the masses are asleep at their ipads and cell phones the real dangers to the humanity are ignored. 

There are no great voices to warn us of unimpeded " progress", technological or economical,  there are dangers in both. World needs a leader that understands the consequences of our folly.

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Careless Whispers

Careless Whispers

In the dark corners of my mind

Where you were the light once shone

In the dark corners of my life

There you were, a hope once born

Storms of life have come and gone

Feelings get lost, when the feeling's withdrawn

Pretend again, when nothing's there

We fear to walk, where we used to dare

Lies fill the gap

In what we used to feel

We search for love

That we used to steal

No longer welcome, where we used to live

Eyes misty, we didn't forgive 

(M.N.R.)

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Answers???

Answers???

Life gives  you choices

Go ahead, worse or bad

Whatever the future holds

Happy or sad

You seek answers, 

Don't know what to ask

When it is all up to you

You are not up to the task

You don't  like dreaming

But you dream big

Want to row boat of this life here

All you bring is a twig

Love, it is all you have

Love, doesn't mean a thing

Love's bite, it is deadly

Love takes out the sting

What you want to know

And you have always known it all

When it is time to face the music

On your face you fall

(M.N.R.)

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84

Corrections and suggestions only please!

84

Those days when you feel good
About feeling bad
Life can't always be happy
Some days you are happy,
just for being sad
Life it is not always,
about just having it all
You must climb higher and higher
Even just for that great fall
It is eighty four tonight on my mind
And not for the reasons you think
What good life in a bed of roses,
when those roses stink.
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Fwd: WhatsApp video

Get WhatsApp for your iPhone, Android, Nokia, BlackBerry or Windows Phone today: http://www.whatsapp.com/download/

Heroic President Obama Responds to Rep. Pete Sessions' Ugly Insult with Dignity and Grace

http://www.politicususa.com/2013/10/24/heroic-president-obama-responds-rep-pete-sessions-ugly-insult-dignity-grace.html


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CNBC.com Article: Wealthy could lose big if Fed stops money flow

Like I ve been saying the deficits make the rich richer

CNBC.com Article: Wealthy could lose big if Fed stops money flow

While the wealthy don't show any signs of worrying about the effects of tighter money, they should be, according to economist Marc Faber.

Full Story:
http://www.cnbc.com/id/101128969

------------------------------------------------
Download the CNBC iPhone app from the App Store for Free and get Streaming Real-Time quotes, breaking news and the latest videos from CNBC.
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/cnbc/id334125582

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The Great Malala Saga

A few days ago I had posted a link here

https://www.facebook.com/woodrow.guthrie/posts/609617105746273

A post about a new theory about Malala. A friend had asked me for a comment,  and I posted the story here for others to comment. I explained what I thought of the story but not too clearly, here are my comments.

Not everything in my life happens only to please my sensibilities. I have made many easy and simple choices because it is difficult to have peace of mind otherwise.

Man is supposed be valiant, honorable even, yet history is full of examples where people bowed to the powers that be, some mere humans became god like, even Gods, and men accepted, the lords and the masters raped their wives and daughters and "men" knelt before them, took their word as the word of "god".

Not all stories are true, not all fiction is just that, mere fiction. 

I know it is hard to judge what I am saying, it is on purpose, I want you think. Is it not what this page is about?

This story comes on the heels of the rejection of Malala for the Nobel Peace prize, could it be that "they" did not want everyone digging deeper in to the story? But forget that.

Think. Years ago I learnt," life is a game of connect the dots, if you don't connect all the dots, and in the right order, you will never get the picture.

I lived in Mardan, at the gates of Afghanistan and Swat valley, from July 1965 to January 1967. I was 13, I could walk around town with a rifle, sit in a tea shop till 1 a.m., smoke hashish, ( if I wanted to), the whore house was  across the Hotie river. It was free area, no Taliban there. Hindus lived there so did some Christians. So what happened.

After the Soviet invasion, we the US and GB created the Taliban, yes we did, with support of the oil money, they being afraid that a Soviet win will endanger their fiefdoms. We could spend a time here arguing the reasons why we created the Taliban, but all that is important in this story is that we did and so we are a party to the mess they create. 

How many kids have been killed, no names, no mourning, no holidays and no visits with Obama in the Oval office. And not just by the Taliban either, right? 

Malala is a great kid, I wish her the best, the same as I would do for my daughters. Malala is also a pawn in the propaganda wars between the Taliban and the West, what story is true? Who knows, we are used to believing only that what pleases us, if not then it just a conspiracy theory. 

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The Hoax of a Government Shutdown

So you impressed that your favorite Republican politician is threatening to shutdown the government to repeal Obamacare, or may be you are frightened that a shut down will cause the poor to starve or even die, hopeless mother will be throwing their kids out of the windows or may be they will be jumping in front of trains not able to feed their kids.

You are sad or proud that millions will lose their jobs or the government workers will not get paid, Air force will park their planes, and the NSA will not listen to you having phone sex with that other, ( they like that you know). 

Relax, in the US a government shut down is nothing more than a method of grand standing, in other words a whole lot of bull shit. 

Anyone really think that the crock of shit we call government dies anything real for the public beside borrowing money to stick it to the public and enrich the uber rich that own the government and keep the politicians on a dog leash,  a very short dog leash. 

The idea of a government shut down actually means that no one shows up for work and no one actually gets paid, government employees and the contractors and the president and congress do not get a paycheck for the days that the government is closed. That is not going to happen so I call it a bullshit. 

For forty years we have been told about budget cuts by both parties but every year we are deeper in debt, ever wonder how? 

Every time politicians talk about cutting jobs (military or civil service) the jobs are not actually cut they only transferred to some corporation of some buddy of a politician or a defense giant wit lobbyist that buys off you congress person, may they hire ones cousin or nephew or son in law or in many cases just hire the congress person as a consultant or lobbyist. So much for honesty, so think that contractor  will not perform "work" or get paid for the days the government shuts down. 

How do I know? In the great American tradition of survivorship, I am a fellow survivor, from 1976 to 2004, I survived many a shut down, the stars did not fall out of the sky and the earth did not even shake or stop spinning. 

So what will the government shut down do or prove, not a goddamn thing, whether you be a Republican or Democrat don't be impressed by the hot air coming from Washington, more shit will follow it. 

https://www.facebook.com/BetamaxColo/posts/688674181144696

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What US Could Learn

What America (US) Could Learn From Islam 

Soon we will be bombing Syria, it just the matter of when and how much. And why not, there are Islamic countries that are will to pay us the expense, so fighting for freedom is a great business these days. Go and kill some people that may not like you,  may not be your friends, may not even care that you exist,  but the pay is good and it is good business, killing people for money while you are doing good and creating more business for future. 

http://www.zerohedge.com/contributed/2013-09-03/chemical-weapons-hoax?fb_action_ids=10202030004817625&fb_action_types=og.likes&fb_source=other_multiline&action_object_map=%5B170560213129883%5D&action_type_map=%5B%22og.likes%22%5D&action_ref_map=%5B%5D

But regardless. Going into Syria, for whatever purpose, and ulterior motives we know two things we must have learned from Iraq and Afghanistan and also from Egypt now, we are not going to stop any bloodshed only increase it, and two we are not going in to promote democracy in the Middle East no matter what BS we spew from our various orifices. 

So whatever the Nobel prize winner Obama and the antiwar Kerry are saying is lies, lies and lies. When did we become humanitarians and anti chemical weapons when we use phosphorous bombs and depleted uranium armaments? Is all about that the powerful make the rules?   Pathetic really is this grandstanding by the US on the dead bodies of the Syrians.

Muslims are fools we know, but the basis of this and all the other on going conflicts is not in Islam per se, but in the simple fact and standards of human history. First, that the powerful and the rich will never have enough power and the riches. We can see it right here at home, our presidents have become no less dictatorial, and power mad than any other two bit president or potentate of a third world country. And as more power and money is concentrated in the hands of a fee the the power their thirst for power increases. We can see it right here at the street level too when local cops kill the innocent without consequences., the grand juries and the juries afraid to convict, it is not unlike any other third world nation. Thats not all, we saw it in Bush and Cheney and we see it now in the bluster of our congresspeople, Bohenor and Pelosi come to mind. Of course I could continue with pages if not books of such examples of corruption of power but you get the  idea.

So what if McCain is bored now, he has been pushing to bomb and kill somebody somewhere for so long that now as he sees his wish come true he is moving on, he is going to watch the bombing on a big screen TV though.

As will the Nobel prize laureate Mr Obama, like that king in the Mel Blanks movie History of the world "it 

Is great to be the king". http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-23958312

I empathize with Obama,  even though I know those that start wars don't lose much sleep  over those being killed.

Borger: Obama's irony, McCain's agony

At a personal and philosophical level, I have nothing against death, every one has to die any way. I don't want any heroic efforts to save me, I don't to live in a coma, be a paraplegic or live for years with Parkinson's or Dementia. I know we will all die, my children will to, I am sure I could kill in a fight, in a war, may be even in cold blood too, we don't know till the time comes, it is Obama's time, it dies not bother me.

Far as the middle east is concerned they are killing each other, they will keep doing it, even though US has killed many more than Saddam ever did, the killing still continues even after we brought them peace and democracy, at least we say we did not stir up the shit pot.

And the Syrians will kill each other, after we go and kill some of them for their own benefit. I really don't care they like the rest of them will keep at it for a long while.

That brings me to a question, why we even want to go there? What if the stuff starts in other places in the Arab world, and it will, you know, we know that it will. Why did we stay out of Bahrain when the Sunni government was killing the Shia  population, and what will do by helping those in AlQaeda and the Taliban that want to kill us and our "friends", are we just trying to make more money by keeping the pot stirred up. 

But then, it is always about money, the point I want us to learn. Though we are technically broke, we are so deep in debt that we will never pay it off, and that is not even the problem.

The problem you see is this. As in the Arab lands today, as in throughout the history, it always comes out about money, and funny thing about money is that, "the meek shall inherit the earth". As we brag about our riches, as to how we have created more millionaires and all, we shall not 

Forget the lessons of history, the Bolshevik revolution, the French revolution, the Arab spring, the all got there start when the poor and the oppressed became tired of the abuse by the rich. The colonies revolted against the colonialists, same reason. Islam does not make people go crazy, it is just the rally point of the people tired being oppressed and abused by the governments and the leaders. Tired of the rich usurping the wealth and the resources of the nations and the lands and the countries. One can wish that they are different, one can hope that the people will stay asleep, yet to each brutality imposed upon the masses there is a day of reckoning. In Syria, the people got tired of Assad not because he is an Alawi, or that he is from a minority, the uprising came because of theft of riches by the cronies and the brutality of those in power, all nations take notice.

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