Newsgroup: it.politica.internazionale
Titolo: Vogliamo piu' democrazia in Russia e meno in Kazakhstan!

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/05/AR2006050501490.html
Cheney Switches From Scowls to Smiles
By Peter Baker
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, May 6, 2006; A13
A day after scolding Russia for retreating on democracy, Vice President
Cheney flew to oil-rich Kazakhstan yesterday and lavished praise on the
autocratic leader of a former Soviet republic where opposition parties
have been banned, newspapers shut down and advocacy groups intimidated.
Cheney stood next to Kazakhstan's longtime president, Nursultan
Nazarbayev, in a marble hall of the presidential palace in Astana and
congratulated him on his country's vibrant economy. His tone was
markedly different from the tenor of his remarks about Russia a day
earlier during a stop in Lithuania, when he accused Moscow of violating
its citizens' rights and using "intimidation or blackmail" against
neighbors.
In the course of a 395-word opening statement, according to a White
House transcript, Cheney pronounced himself "delighted" to be a guest
of Nazarbayev, saying "I consider him my friend" and adding that "the
United States is proud to count Kazakhstan as a friend." Cheney
professed "great respect" for Nazarbayev and said that "we are proud to
be your strategic partner" and look forward "to continued friendship
between us."
Asked about Kazakhstan's human rights record, he expressed "admiration
for all that's been accomplished here in Kazakhstan" and confidence
that it will continue.
Kazakhstan, however, remains a repressive nation, ruled by a former
Communist apparatchik who has maintained a tight grip over its 15
million people since Soviet days and parlayed its massive energy
reserves into a place on the international stage. Those reserves, human
rights advocates say, have earned the country a pass from the Bush
administration on human rights.
Nazarbayev, 65, a onetime blast-furnace operator in a steel mill, was a
member of the Soviet Politburo who took over as head of the republic of
Kazakhstan in 1990, became president after independence in 1991, and
has stayed in office through elections that have been judged neither
free nor fair by international monitors -- the most recent in December,
when he claimed 91 percent of the vote.
The opposition party Democratic Choice of Kazakhstan was liquidated
last year, and authorities refused to register two other opposition
parties. Two opposition leaders died from gunshot wounds -- the
circumstances are contested -- in recent months. The government has
closed newspapers and seized print runs while using tax, immigration
and other investigations to harass nongovernmental organizations. It is
illegal to insult Nazarbayev or to report on his health, finances or
private life.
"During the year almost all media outlets willing to criticize the
president directly were subjected to intimidation, often in the form of
law enforcement actions or civil suits," the State Department's annual
human rights report stated in March.
Nazarbayev has been accused of massive corruption. His own prime
minister revealed in 2002 that Nazarbayev had stashed $1 billion in oil
money in a secret Swiss bank account. Aides called it a legitimate
"special reserve account." U.S. prosecutors have also charged American
businessman James H. Giffen with laundering tens of millions of dollars
in oil company bribes to Nazarbayev and his family, allegations the
Kazakh president denies.
Oil has dominated U.S. relations with Kazakhstan for years. With the
largest crude oil reserves in the Caspian Sea region, Kazakhstan pumps
1.2 million barrels a day and exports 1 million of that, making it an
increasingly important international supplier. With foreign investment
flooding into the country, the Kazakh government hopes to boost
production to 3.5 million barrels a day by 2015, rivaling Iran.
But human rights groups that hailed Cheney's comments on Russia said
Kazakhstan deserved the same. "It is hardly consistent," said Curt
Goering, deputy executive director of Amnesty International. "He made
some important remarks [on Russia]. He said some of the right things
that needed to be said. But he should have said some similar things in
Kazakhstan."
http://www.antiwar.com/justin/?articleid=8942
 Comrade Cheney
vs. President Putin
The Sovietization of American foreign policy
by Justin Raimondo
Busy. Busy. Busy. When it comes to conjuring new enemies, this
administration never sleeps. If you thought taking on the non-Israeli
portion of the Middle East is a lot to put on our plate, then you
haven't got a clue as to the appetites of the Bush regime. Not only do
they want to start a new cold war with the Muslim world, they want to
re-ignite the old cold war with Russia.
Speaking in Vilnius at a summit of Baltic and Black Sea officials -
in effect, a concordance of America's very own Warsaw Pact, which now
encircles the former Soviet Union - Cheney brayed: "No legitimate
interest is served when oil and gas become tools of intimidation or
blackmail, either by supply manipulation or attempts to monopolize
transportation."
This is a reference to the dispute between Ukraine, with its newly
installed, Washington-loyal satrap Viktor Yushchenko at the helm, and
the Russians over the price of oil and natural gas. During the bad old
days of the Soviet empire, Ukraine was considered such a loyal Soviet
sycophant that the Kremlin gladly subsidized the cost of oil and
natural gas, exporting it at below cost to Ukrainian consumers. That's
precisely the sort of uneconomic feature of empire-building that leads
to imperial decay, and, in the case of the Soviet Union, contributed to
its downfall. In any event, after the implosion of Communism and the
demise of the Warsaw Pact, Ukraine broke away from the Soviet Union,
and that was a bitter blow to the formerly high-and-mighty lords of the
Kremlin. The seizure of the Ukrainian government by Washington's allies
in Kiev meant Moscow itself was but a few minutes by missile from the
nearest NATO outpost. (Yes, technically, Ukraine is still not a formal
member of NATO, but that's on the agenda if the Americans can keep
their local hirelings in the saddle.)
So what is this "blackmail" Cheney is talking about? It is the Russians
abandoning the doctrine of socialist internationalism and putting good
old capitalist theory into practice. Instead of continuing to offer oil
and natural gas to Ukraine at below-market prices, they insist on
charging the price set by the international market. To Cheney, this is
"blackmail": an economist would call it capitalism.
I don't know if this signifies Cheney's formal conversion to Marxism,
but surely it ought to dispel the myth that our Vice President believes
in anything approaching the free market. Or, perhaps, he believes that
capitalism is a system reserved for the U.S. Whatever is going on here,
the brazen hypocrisy of Cheney's remarks are hard to take: here, after
all, is the vice president of a nation that imposes draconian economic
sanctions on countries that fail to kowtow to its every edict, making
accusations of "blackmail"! Here is a nation whose president refuses to
take the nuking of Iran off the table as a distinct possibility - and
it's the Russians who are the blackmailers. Go figure!
Cheney, however, was just getting started. Russia, he insisted, harbors
dreams of revanchism: "No one can justify actions that undermine the
territorial integrity of a neighbor." Coming from Cheney, these words
must have struck at the heart of every Russian nationalist, including
those in the Kremlin, cutting them to the quick. Because there Russian
President Vladimir Putin sits amid the ruins of a shattered empire,
like a quadruple-amputee victim of a major car accident with the shards
still lodged in the bleeding sides of his torso. Cheney's words rubbed
salt in some pretty sore wounds: That this was his intention is hard
not to believe.
What did he hope to accomplish by it? Certainly he could not have
thought it would have any effect other than to ratchet up anti-American
sentiment and reinforce rising Russian nationalism. The vice president
may be evil, but he's no dummy: this was a provocation, pure and
simple.
The reference to Russia's alleged subversion of its neighbors'
"territorial integrity" is code for the disputes over separatism that
have broken out in the nations ruled by Cheney's audience. The
president of Georgia, Mikhail Saakashvili, was present and must have
smiled (albeit inwardly) as he recalled his brutal suppression of
pro-Russian ethnic minorities in South Ossetia and Abkhazia, who seek
independence from their ethnic Georgian overlords. In Kosovo, the
Albanian Kosovars were supported by the U.S. in their struggle to
achieve de facto independence, but in Georgia separatism is opposed.
The one consistent strain in this policy is to oppose Slavic interests
wherever they may dare raise their heads: there is to be no quarter in
the civilizational war with the (now vastly diminished) Byzantine East,
just as there is to be no retreat in the global war on Islam. The
American strategy is a simple one: regime change all 'round!
The series of "peaceful" regime changes effected in Russia's "near
abroad" - Ukraine, Georgia, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova - were all bought
and paid for by the U.S., and now, in the cases of Ukraine and
Kyrgyzstan, we are seeing some blowback, a nationalist reaction to the
overweening arrogance of the American hegemon. An effort to pull off a
self-styled "denim revolution" in Belarus failed miserably, in part on
account of the disunity (and sheer dizziness) of the "democratic"
opposition, but mostly because Eastern Europeans are wising up to the
Americans' game. Having only just recently left one Warsaw Pact, they
are no longer quite so eager to join another.
The recent election held in Belarus, won handily by President
Lukashenko, is routinely denounced as fraudulent by European Union
commissioners. This charge has got to establish some sort of record for
sheer gall, coming as it does from officials of a political entity that
repeats referenda until the politically correct results are achieved,
in this case "yes" votes for the Euro and the adoption of the EU
"constitution" in recalcitrant states like Denmark and Switzerland. In
the EU, they just keep voting until they get it "right." This makes the
electoral process of a Soviet-era relic like Belarus seem positively
liberal by comparison.
Anyone seeking a principled consistency in American foreign policy is
bound to be disappointed: separatism is good for the Kosovars and the
southern Sudanese, but bad for the South Ossetians and the
Russian-speakers of Moldova and the Baltics. Nukes are good in the
hands of the Israelis and the Pakistanis, not to mention the Indians,
but bad if they're acquired by the Iranians, who have no right to deter
nuclear blackmail. No nation may invade or occupy the territory of
another - not because it is an act of unprovoked aggression, but
because such acts are privileges reserved for the exclusive enjoyment
of American government officials.
Facing off against the U.S. in a rematch, post-Communist Russia sees a
funhouse mirror reflection of its old self, a Sovietized America at the
head of a "global democratic revolution," as our Great Leader puts it.
With Washington at the center of an international web of servile
"pro-American" parties and propaganda outlets, all trained to bark and
bite on command, the anti-Russian "Putin = Stalin" chorus is rising
loud and fast. The reason has little to do with his alleged
authoritarian proclivities. It is because no one else has unified the
Russian people behind an independent agenda - and an independent
foreign policy.
Standing up to America on the Iranian question, selling arms to Syria,
forbidding the dissemination of American taxpayer dollars to Russian
"opposition" politicians - Putin has incurred the wrath of the
neoconservatives, who see in him a prime candidate for the new
"Hitler." This demonization campaign will accelerate if and when Putin
moves to run for another term. The Russian constitution forbids him
from running again, but that can always be changed by a Putin-loyal
Duma. The irony is that the "human rights" activists accuse the Russian
president of harboring "antidemocratic" tendencies precisely because he
is supported by the overwhelming majority of Russians, who would gladly
elect him to a third and even a fourth term, just like the Americans
supported Franklin Roosevelt.
The idea that the U.S. is trying to spread its system of "democracy" is
just a cover for a program that is essentially the opposite. As
evidenced by Cheney's denunciation of Russia's newfound devotion to the
free market - at least when it comes to un-fixing oil and natural gas
prices - the Americans are not intent on spreading free-market
ideology. What they are spreading is American control: of key military
bases and access to oil. The U.S. drive to achieve what the neocons
call "benevolent global hegemony" is relentless, and Putin is an
obstacle in their path: there can be little doubt that the
regime-changers of Washington have him in their sights.

 
http://www.antiwar.com/justin/?articleid=8942
Eh, appunto. Il resto e' delirio di uno che vive di schadenfreude nella 
sua casetta in Canada'.
Am.