OUTGOING OBAMA ADMINISTRATION’S HYPOCRISY IN EXPELLING 35 RUSSIAN DIPLOMATS

POLITICS

GLOBAL ATLANTICISM

30.12.2016

USA

Russia

Kerry Bolton

The outgoing Obama administration in expelling 35 Russian diplomats from the USAi indicates the Russophobic regime that would have been maintained had the plutocrats’ choice, Hillary Clinton, won the presidency. More likely, the situation with Russia would have escalated in a rather psychotic manner. Russophobia was a feature of the electoral campaign. Obama stated of alleged Russian cyber activity during the campaign:

‘I have issued an executive order that provides additional authority for responding to certain cyber activity that seeks to interfere with or undermine our election processes and institutions, or those of our allies or partners’. ii

Homeland Security ‘disclaims’ its own report

‘Certain cyber activity’, interfering with the elections of Russia and her allies has long been a featured part of the attack on Russia sponsored by the US Congress and State Department. The accusations that Russia had interfered in the elections by the release of information against Clinton was a smear designed to depict Trump as somehow being manipulated by Russia. Evidence was not forthcoming, but Obama used the smears as a parting shot. Obama said that the evidence is supposedly so secret that not much of it – if any – will be released. In November seven Democrats on the Security Intelligence Committee urged the White House and CIA to declassify evidence on the alleged hacking of Democratic Party campaign and Clinton emails, but nothing was forthcoming. The House Intelligence Committee asked for a briefing, but were rebuffed. Obama’s bizarre reply is that the Amercian public ‘know all they need to know’,iii which is to say, nothing. The report that was issued by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the FBI on 29 December, is five pages long, plus seven on recommendations. Like a sick joke, the report comes with a ‘disclaimer’ from the DHS, stating that it does not provide ‘warranties of any kind’ for the information the report contains.iv

The US Administration maintains that the move was the response to harassment of American diplomats in Russia and of Russian state interference in the US election in favour of Trump and against Clinton. Yet the US has maintained an antagonistic attitude towards Russia because the Russian electorate has not chosen a government compliant to US/globalist interest; hence, the Cold War only had a brief respite when the drunken buffoon Boris Yeltsin held office. Therefore, the Russian electorate has to be ‘re-educated’ so that it votes according to the will of Washington and New York.

The allegations of harassment of American diplomats seem to have been first floated in June by The Washington Post. The Russian foreign office repudiated the allegations, and contended that it was a matter of the US projecting its own behaviour onto Russia, stating of unacceptable practices, that:

‘There even had been cases when such actions were carried out in the presence of pregnant wives of our diplomats. Instead of receiving our signal, identifying the problem and creating conditions to improve our relations, they (the US) flip everything upside down’.v

The Washington Post allegations came a month after Congress had passed a bill to subject the travel plans of Russian diplomats in the USA to FBI scrutiny.

Russia the perennial problem

Russia has been a perennial disappointment and headache to plutocracy since Stalin kicked out their man, Trotsky,vi in 1928, and the Trotskyites and other Marxists teamed up with the plutocrats and Wilsonian internationalists – in both parties – and became what is miscalled ‘neo-conservatives’ (there is nothing ‘conservative’ about them) or ‘necons’ as we might better call them.vii One of the bastardous offspring of this Russophobic convergence between the so-called ‘Right’; and ‘Left’ wings of the same system was the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), founded by Trotskyites and sponsored by the US Government.viii The job of NED is to continue what had hitherto undertaken by the CIA in what had bene called the ‘cultural Cold War’. NED serves as a type of plutocratic version of the Comintern; NED is a capitalist Internationale that works to subvert any regime not in accord with the US ‘exceptionalism’ or global hegemony. It has boasted of its role in the bringing down the Soviet bloc by sponsoring dissident movements. NED’s primary target remains Russia and in tandem with the networks of George Soros, and many other agencies associated with the US Government, has fomented ‘colour revolutions’ on the periphery of Russia and attempted to interfere in Russian politics.ix

Russia expels subversives

Russia is one of the few states that has fully recognised the subversive character of the sundry ‘civic society’ organisations that have mushroomed, under US/NED/Soros sponsorship, within Russia and bordering states. Putin gave these organisations, headed up by NED, their marching orders, being described by the Russian prosecutor general’s office as posing ‘a threat to the constitutional order of the Russian Federation and the defensive capability and security of the government’.x Russia charged NED with interference in internal politics:

‘Using Russian commercial and noncommercial organisations under its control, the National Endowment for Democracy participated in work to declare the results of election campaigns illegitimate, organise political actions intended to influence decisions made by the authorities, and discredit service in Russia’s armed forces’.xi

The state news agency RIA Novosti commented on the Ukrainian example:

‘Ukrainian democracy - it is expensive, but the Ukrainians do not pay for it. Money is given to radicals and insurgents from where suspicious individuals usually get it – Washington. As it turned out … the National Endowment for Democracy. …Under their supervision there are constant revolutions and military coups. Paid here, bribed there… For them, a change of government in any country - is just another line in the financial statements’.xii

Referring to a NED statement, the report cites NED giving $14,000,000 during 2011 to 2014 to get the government they wanted in Ukraine. It should be recalled that US assistant secretary of state Victoria Nuland was right on scene among the useful idiots of NED et al. when they undertook their ‘colour revolution’. She is married to US neocon luminary Robert Kagan, a cofounder in 1998 of the Project for a New American Century which drafted the blueprint for US-created chaos in the Middle East, which was followed by Bush and Obama administrations. The duo would have held greater influence under a Clinton government.xiii

Carl Gershman, president of NED, stated that the Washington/NED strategy is to topple Putin by working on the Russian peripheries, isolating and surrounding Russia. Of particular worry is the Eurasian Customs Union, which is stymying US plans to use the EU to control states, which Gershman calls ‘Russian bullying’, and he described Ukraine ‘the biggest prize’. In detaching sundry states from alignment with Russia Gershman stated that ‘Russian democracy also can benefit from this process. Ukraine’s choice to join Europe will accelerate the demise of the ideology of Russian imperialism that Putin represents… Russians, too, face a choice, and Putin may find himself on the losing end not just in the near abroad but within Russia itself’.xiv

Interference in Russian political process

NED is open about its role, because all is justified by the magic word ‘democracy’. NED states that it uses ‘activists’ and others in undermine those states that are targeted. It is able to do so more effectively as a ‘nongovernmental’ organisation. NED states that it is ‘Funded largely by the U.S. Congress’, and was ‘created jointly by Republicans and Democrats’.xv NED was established by US Congress via the National Endowment for Democracy Act in 1983. During 2006 to 2014, $US963,000,000 was given in grants to NED by the US State Department.xvi

On the periphery of Russia, NED boats of its initiatives in installing regimes compliant to the USA, and integrated into the EU:

‘As Europe celebrated 25 years since the ‘Fall of the Wall,’ the countries in which NED grantees are active exhibited two trajectories. Some, like Ukraine, Moldova and Albania, made important strides in reinvigorating their democratic transitions and moving closer to the West. These historic steps towards EU integration committed their governments to further democratization. The Endowment assisted civil society in supporting these countries’ European choice, pushing for greater reforms, and holding officials responsible for the obligations they have taken on. Other countries, such as Belarus, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Macedonia, made no democratic progress or actually regressed. In response, NED supported civil society groups opposing backsliding, assisting democrats at risk, and expanding space for alternative views and voices’.xvii

However one dresses it up with references to democracy against repression, NED states that it sponsors those who are committed to destroying the legitimate governments of sundry states, to bring the targeted states ‘closer to the West’, which is to say, to Washington and New York. NED states that it intervened in the elections in the Ukraine, which it calls ‘election monitoring’; and other euphemisms. NED states that it assists ‘activists’ in Belarus against the state, and supported alternative media that undermined the government. In Moldova NED ‘grantees’ were active in the elections. Regardless of whether one accepts the ideological agenda of NED, this Congressionally-funded institution interferes in the elections of many states throughout the world, in order to bring them ‘closer to the West’. That is their raison d’etre.

NED describes Russia as trying to extend its ‘authoritarianism’ (sic) throughout Eurasia. For NED Putin’s ‘record high approval ratings’ are regarded as a ‘challenge’. Despite the Russian government having identified ‘civil society organizations’ such as NED as ‘foreign agents’, NED states that it continues to work with the anti-Putin opposition in Russia. Again, whatever one thinks of Putin, this is still Congressionally-funded interference in Russia’s politics.xviii

Amercian interference in Russian elections has included the funding of the Movement for Defence of Voters’ Rights (‘Golos’) via NED and USAID. Golos has undertaken a series of manoeuvres to avoid being registered as ‘foreign agents’ by the Russian state, being used as a propaganda outlet against the government. In a 2011 report Ellen Barry wrote: ‘Golos receives financing from Western governments, including the United States, and some Russian officials have suggested that the organization’s real aim is to incite an Arab Spring-type revolution in Russia’. Putin alleged that ‘so-called grant recipients’ were interfering with elections on behalf of foreign governments. Duma members from three parties asked state prosecutors to investigate Golos. Prosecutors alleged that ‘one of Golos’s most popular features — an online “map of violations” where people can post reports — violates a Russian law against publishing data, especially polling results, during the five days before voting. …’ Prosecutors also accused Golos of ‘dissemination of rumors under the guise of trustworthy reports, with the goal of defaming a party as well as its individual members. … Golos’s critics in the Russian government say its work is tainted by the money it receives from two American agencies, the National Endowment for Democracy and the United States Agency for International Development.’xix Flyers found at a raid on a Golos office in the Russian Far East urged voters to invalidate the voting papers. Golos was prosecuted and was fined $1,000. The Obama administration condemned the prosecution as ‘harassment’.xx Presently Golos is appealing a July 2016 court ruling for liquidation for ‘serious irremediable breaches of law’.xxi

USAID projected a budget $54.2 million for Russia for 2013 funding groups such as Golos, when it was told by the authorities in 2012 to seize its activities there. The Moscow Times reported:

‘USAID, which has a mandate to support U.S. foreign policy and has spent more than $2.6 billion over the past 20 years in Russia, says on its website that it has been “a proud supporter of Russia’s oldest human rights organizations” and supported civic watchdog groups that have “provided non-partisan oversight over electoral processes.”’xxii

USAID founded during the Cold War (1961) by President John F. Kennedy, states of its objectives:

‘U.S. foreign assistance has always had the twofold purpose of furthering America’s interests while improving lives in the developing world. USAID carries out U.S. foreign policy by promoting broad-scale human progress at the same time it expands stable, free societies, creates markets and trade partners for the United States, and fosters good will abroad’.xxiii

Russia and predatory capital

USAID are to be congratulated in their openness: they are overt in stating that their purpose is to further US foreign policy behind the façade of humanitarian work. Part of their agenda is to transform states into ‘market economies’, which enables predatory international capital to exploit resources. It might be recalled that the peace agreement imposed by NATO with mass bombs on Serbia was to ensure that mineral rich Kosovo would be a market economy, whose resources would be opened to ‘privatisation’, especially the Trepca mining region, albeit the economy of the region remains in chaos. The Kosovan government was obliged to establish a Privatization Agency of Kosovo, and the Government Privatization Committee.xxiv President Woodrow Wilson’s ‘Fourteen Points’ for the restructuring of the world after World War I were based on international free trade. President Roosevelt’s ‘Atlantic Charter’ for the post-1945 world had the same foundation. Presently, a major bug-bear of the same internationalists is the trading bloc being promoted by Russia, the Eurasian Customs Union. In each of these wars, and conflicts, including the present confrontation with Russia, ‘democracy’ and ‘human rights’ has served as a façade for the aims of predatory international capital. Of Russia, following a list of USAID programmes relative to health and welfare in Russia, the actual purposes are listed, such as:

Supporting ‘civic watchdog groups in Russia’ ‘that have provided non-partisan oversight over electoral processes including through innovative uses of technology’, as part of a ‘world-wide movement for open government’; supporting ‘civil society organizations whose number and influence has grown from 40 registered organizations in 1987 to approximately 300,000 today, not including state-funded public organizations’; supporting the development of professional relationships between Russian and American journalists, publishers, electronic media managers, designers, content developers, advertising specialists and new media practitioners’; facilitating the funding of ‘the U.S. Russia Investment Fund ’ with ‘$329 million to promote ‘the development of a free market economy in Russia’.xxv These multilevel outreach programmes sound all very charitable but are designed to achieve the last named ‘development of a free market economy’, for the purpose of opening Russia up to oligarchical exploitation. This generosity, when not achieved by grants to ‘civil society organisations’ is discarded in favour of fomenting of ‘colour revolutions’, and ultimately of war as per Serbia and Iraq, or revolution and war in tandem, as in Libya.

Trump problematic

The Trump victory is seen as a significant reversal of globalist interests, although one already might look in askance at his appointment of executives from Goldman Sachs in the primary finance posts. It seems vindictive that Obama used his closing days in the White House to leave with a Russophobic gesture of the type one might expect from a psychotic. In a previous article for Katehon I wrote of the Trump victory in a mostly positive manner.xxvi Trump and Lt. Gen. Mike Flynn, national security adviser, and others in the new administration have indicated they want rapprochement with Russia. In recent weeks, with further appointments being announced there are several factors that emerge as problematic for a new course. Vice president Pence is noted for his considering Russia as the primary enemy of the USA, and supports a policy of military encirclement, as per Obama and Clinton.xxvii Jim ‘Mad Dog’ Mattis, nominated as secretary of defense, regards Russia as the primary enemy.xxviii Gen. Joseph Dunford, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, states that Russia is the ‘greatest enemy’.xxixGen. Flynn has made some troubling comments about his commitment to ‘Amercian exceptionalism’,xxx which indicates the continuations of hegemonic policies that make an accord with Russia difficult to envision.

Will NED and USAID be re-directed as part of Trump’s feted ‘America First’ policy? Or will they be more active than ever in what Trump has indicated will be a continuation of interventionism, such as his commitment to overthrow Iran? In his stated aim to ‘drain the swamp’, how can the State Department be purged of individuals such as Victoria Nuland? Trump talked something akin to revolution. Will he have the stamina and knowledge of a Putin to steer a new course among the debris of the old, with an iron will? Already it is becoming increasingly difficult to see a clarity emerging in the USA’s foreign policy for the New Year. Regardless, he has been left by Obama with a psychotic parting shot against Russia to clean up within the coming weeks.

i Obama expels 35 Russian diplomats as part of sanctions for US election hacking, The Guardian, 29 December 2016; https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/dec/29/barack-obama-sanctions-russia-election-hack

ii Ibid.

iii Tyler Durden, ‘Obama Under “Intense Pressure” To Release Evidence Proving Russians Hacked The Election’, 29 December 2016; http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-12-29/obama-under-intense-pressure-release-evidence-proving-russians-hacked-election

iv G. Washington, ‘What the Russian Hacking report DOESN’T say’, 29 December 2016; http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-12-29/what-russian-hacking-report-doesnt-say

v ‘Russian diplomats harassed by US, not other way around – Moscow on Wash Post article’, Russian Today, 29 June 2016; https://www.rt.com/news/348793-russian-diplomats-harassed-us/

vi Bolton, Stalin – the enduring legacy (2012), 95-109.

vii Bolton, Stalin – the enduring legacy, 109-124.

viii Bolton, Revolution from above (2011), 218-219.

ix Bolton, Revolution from above, 218-244.

x Alec Luhn, National Endowment for Democracy is first ‘undesirable’ NGO banned in Russia’, The Guardian, 28 July 2015, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jul/28/national-endowment-for-democracy-banned-russia

xi Alec Luhn, ibid.

xii A. Solovyev, ‘NED invested nearly $14 million’, 15 July 2015; https://ria.ru/radio_brief/20150715/1129708824.html

xiii Philip Giraldi, ‘Clinton’s Haw-in-Waiting’, The Amercian Conservative, 19 May 2016; http://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/clintons-hawk-in-waiting/

xiv Carl Gershman, ‘Former Soviet states stand up to Russia. Will the U.S.?’, The Washington Post, 26 September 2013; https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/former-soviet-states-stand-up-to-russia-will-the-us/2013/09/26/b5ad2be4-246a-11e3-b75d-5...

xv ‘About NED’, http://www.ned.org/about/

xvi Office of Inspector General, US State Dept., ‘Management assistance report: oversight of grants to NED’, June 2015; https://oig.state.gov/system/files/aud-si-15-34.pdf

xvii NED Central and Eastern Europe, http://www.ned.org/region/central-and-eastern-europe/

xviii NED Eurasia, http://www.ned.org/region/eurasia/

xix Ellen Barry, ‘Russian Authorities Pressure Elections Watchdog’, New York Times, 1 December 2011; http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/02/world/europe/russia-puts-pressure-on-elections-monitor-golos.html

xx Ellen Barry, ibid.

xxi ‘Ban on Golos NGO appealed in Moscow court’, Russian Legal Information Agency, 29 August 2016;

http://rapsinews.com/judicial_news/20160829/276741401.html

xxii ‘USAID Exit to Hit Small Organizations Hard’, Moscow Times, 20 September 2012; https://themoscowtimes.com/news/usaid-exit-to-hit-small-organizations-hard-17960

xxiii USAID, ‘Who we are’, https://www.usaid.gov/who-we-are

xxiv Ministry of Economic Development, Republic of Kosovo, http://mzhe-ks.net/en/government-privatization-committee-gpc#.WGYN4fl96M8

xxv USAID in Russia, https://www.usaid.gov/news-information/fact-sheets/usaid-russia

xxvi Bolton, ‘Trump victory an epochal event?’, Katehon, 10 November 2016; http://katehon.com/article/trump-victory-epochal-event

xxvii Michael Memoil, ‘Pence talks tough on Russia and backs away from praise for Putin — but did he call him a “better” leader than Obama?’, Los Angeles Times, October 4, 2016; http://www.latimes.com/nation/politics/trailguide/la-na-vice-presidential-debate-live-in-a-shift-mike-pence-talks-tough-on-14756...

xxviii Rowan Scarborough, ‘Trump’s Pentagon pick says Russia “dangerous,” Putin possibly “delusional”’, Washington Times, December 6, 2016; http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2016/dec/6/donald-trump-james-mattis-differ-on-vladimir-putin/

xxixYochi Dreazen, ‘Michael Flynn, Trump’s new national security adviser, loves Russia as much as his boss does’, November 21, 2016; http://www.vox.com/2016/11/17/13673280/mike-flynn-trump-new-national-security-adviser-russia-isis-obama-clinton-turkey

xxx Donald S. Cloud, ‘Retired Army Gen. Michael Flynn delivers fiery speech to emptying convention hall’, Los Angeles Times, July 20, 2016; http://www.latimes.com/nation/politics/trailguide/la-na-republican-convention-2016-live-passed-over-as-vice-presidential-pick-14...

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