Nile Bowie
nilebowie.blogspot.com
December 4, 2011
In a sane world, any unnecessary pressure that could contribute to a potentially detrimental conflict between world powers would be avoided at all cost. As a testament to the mental health of the policy makers in Washington, an unprecedented amount of agitation has begun to build between Russia and the United States. Russian officials have recently voiced their severe agitation with regards to US military expansion in the former Soviet Bloc countries of Eastern Europe. President Obama has called for the construction of an anti-ballistic missile system on Russia’s doorstep to safeguard against a possible strike from Iran. Initially, Moscow pressed American officials for a guarantee that this AMB system would not be used to target Russia, something that Washington refused to legally guarantee.
In response, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev warned, “Russia will deploy modern offensive weapons systems in the west and south of the country, thereby ensuring its ability to take out any part of the US missile defense system in Europe.” Medvedev also hinted at Moscow’s withdrawal from the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty signed in 2010, an initiative to mutually reduce nuclear stockpiles in the United States and Russia.
In response, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev warned, “Russia will deploy modern offensive weapons systems in the west and south of the country, thereby ensuring its ability to take out any part of the US missile defense system in Europe.” Medvedev also hinted at Moscow’s withdrawal from the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty signed in 2010, an initiative to mutually reduce nuclear stockpiles in the United States and Russia.
By opposing the hostile installation of a proxy government in Libya and further sanctions against Syria, Russia has become a thorn in the side of corporate policy makers peddling fictitious rhetoric towards the leadership of any non-acquiescent foreign government. As unrest builds on the streets of Moscow, the corporate media omits a critical fact; millions of US taxpayer dollars have been funneled into opposition-friendly Russian NGOs and electoral watchdogs in an open foreign destabilization bid.
Following the same formula of destabilization, US-backed NGOs and opposition parties are now attempting to ultimately trigger regime change in Russia. Organizations receiving US Government funding and support such as the International Republican Institute (IRI), National Democratic Institute (NDI) and the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) have pledged support for an entity called ‘GOLOS’, responsible for scrutinizing Russian electoral irregularities.
NED and NDI have been major US sponsors of past color revolutions in the region, such as the Orange Revolution in Ukraine and the Rose Revolution in Georgia, while the IRI’s website bills its mission in Russia as providing “politically-oriented training and events designed to promote a nationwide grassroots democratic movement” needed to “foster the leadership, institutions and popular support needed to ensure that Russia achieves the democracy it was promised with the fall of communism.” According to the National Endowment for Democracy's website, it has provided GOLOS with substantial financial resources to carry out “press monitoring, monitoring of political agitation, activity of electoral commissions, and other aspects of the application of electoral legislation in the long-term run-up to the elections”.
John McCain’s International Republican Institute has nurtured and promoted the “spontaneous” uprisings in Egypt and Libya this past year and now McCain can hardly contain himself with regards to Russian destabilization. To ward off any skepticism, McCain recently authored the following tremendously irresponsible comment on his twitter page: “Dear Vlad (Vladimir Putin), The Arab Spring is coming to a neighborhood near you.” McCain later deleted the post.
GOLOS has come under heavy fire from Russian lawmakers and observer groups for receiving funding from foreign sources for their political activities. Georgy Fyodorov, chief executive of Russian observer association Civil Control stated GOLOS is “trying to plant doubt and suspicion in people’s minds about the legitimacy of the upcoming election. They have a clear destabilizing tactic; they are carefully conditioning the public to hear some ‘breaking’ news of election fraud. The media will have a field day taping the ensuing clashes between pro-Kremlin and nationalist youth being dispersed by special police. This kind of footage would dilute any remaining trust in Russian elections.”
GOLOS has come under heavy fire from Russian lawmakers and observer groups for receiving funding from foreign sources for their political activities. Georgy Fyodorov, chief executive of Russian observer association Civil Control stated GOLOS is “trying to plant doubt and suspicion in people’s minds about the legitimacy of the upcoming election. They have a clear destabilizing tactic; they are carefully conditioning the public to hear some ‘breaking’ news of election fraud. The media will have a field day taping the ensuing clashes between pro-Kremlin and nationalist youth being dispersed by special police. This kind of footage would dilute any remaining trust in Russian elections.”
Russian politicians are not without their own shortcomings and corruption, but when Vladimir Putin recently accused foreigners of funding his political opponents, outlets such as Reuters associated his remarks with “anti-Western rhetoric”. It is not opinion, but fact, that the federally mandated National Endowment for Democracy (NED) contributes millions of US taxpayer dollars to an army of opposition friendly Russian NGOs to pursue “American interests”.
According to the Russian Central Election Commission, Putin’s United Russian Party received 49% of the vote, more than double the votes any other party received, second only to the Communist Party at 19%, the largest gain since the fall of the USSR. In any allegedly democratic society, the majority vote of Putin’s party would pass as a clear victory. Interestingly enough, ex-Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, a stern advocate of global government, has declared Russia’s latest election results as ‘null and void’.
While speaking at a conference in Vilnius, Lithuania, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton championed the work of GOLOS and insinuated that the Russia Government was not committed to “the rule of law” before boldly declaring the Russian elections to be “unfree and unfair”, insisting that “Russian voters deserve a full investigation of electoral fraud and manipulation". As representatives of the tremendously hypocritical US Government lecture others on their commitments to the rule of law, lest we forget the well-documented crimes which took place during the US Presidential elections in both Florida in 2000 and in Ohio during 2004 to bring the Bush Regime into power.
The bold statements of Clinton and McCain show their total ineptitude towards even humoring the idea of diffusing conflict. While the long-term results of this election may be hard to determine at this stage, few would disagree that the mass manipulation of the electoral process in a nuclear armed and sovereign is the antithesis of a ‘commitment to the rule of law’.
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