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Clinton's Fatigue Really Does Work

by Victor John Serge

 


Several days ago, Boris Yeltsin advised the American bureaucrats not to forget that the old Stalinist establishment of Russia is still holding their finger on the nuclear button. Last Thursday, during a visit to China, Yeltsin lashed out Bill Clinton who dare to remark about Kremlin's military campaign in Chechnya. The indignant Yeltsin preached to media that Clinton has "forgotten that Russia has a full arsenal of nuclear weapons," reviving the worst Cold War-style rhetoric. Although Putin, the Russian Prime Minister, immediately toned things down, saying Yeltsin did not mean to re-ignite the Cold War, Yeltsin's comment underscores tensions between the two bureaucracies since the end of the Cold War. It also indicates the beginning of the demise of the Clinton-Gore policy not to be a super power in order to appease the Communist bureaucrats around the globe and share most of the power with them.

A week ago, the KGB-FSB accused an American diplomat in spying. The Kremlin's decision to expel that diplomat, who was allegedly seized in the middle of a spying operation, was counterbalancing, and four days ago, the FBI-CIA-NSA came up with a bug that was found in the State Department building and allegedly belonged to a Russian spy. However, Clinton's fatigue really does work, and no liberal media mogul bought these spy scandals for their nominal value, because there was no a shred of evidence and even an elementary school student knows the routine procedure if one finds a bug -- try to feed it with disinformation as long as it possible and try to find out to whom it really belongs (a bug with markings that it was 'made in USSR' is usually used by the FBI-CIA-NSA, and a bug 'made in USA' is usually used by the KGB-FSB). And we know that Clinton is a grand-master of the "wag the dog" policy. Therefore, it would be logical to ask ourselves the question -- from what is the administration is trying to distract our attention now?

Is it the Burton's Committee Hearing on "The Role of John Huang and the Riady Family in Political Fundraising" to the Clinton-Gore campaign, which started today, or is it the impending food fight a la Monica Lewinsky entertaining the liberal Maryland court, which tries to create a martyr from Linda Tripp, or there is something more sinister?

Of course, much of the latest international noise should be ascribed to the domestic struggle of both bureaucracies -- for the Kremlin and for the White House.

In the next year, the Russians will elect their chief-executive, and Putin (nearly Ras-Putin), is likely to be as a candidate of the hard-liners. The next Sunday, the Russians will elect their representatives in the Duma (legislative body), and the pro-establishment party, which is eager to show that they still can do a thing or two, is also scramble for seats, and it also have added fuel to the latest Russo-American tensions.

The Chechnya campaign became popular after the KGB-FSB blasted a couple of houses, killing a couple hundred Muscovites then accusing the Chechens in doing those terrorist acts. Thus, a tough anti-American stand has become a lever to boost the popularity of Putin and his Unity bloc ("Yedinstvo" - the pro-establishment party of hard-liners) after the American bombing the Serbs.

The Russian bureaucrats felt betrayed by NATO's liberal bureaucrats who ignored the Russian arguments against expanding NATO membership to the Poles, Hungarians, and Czechs, and who decided to launch a military operation in Yugoslavia over the Russian bureaucrats' objections. Besides, the Russian bureaucrats are alarmed by the plans of the American bureaucrats to set up an anti-missile shield that will definitely loose the cornerstone of a disarmament pact.

Counterbalancing, the Kremlin bureaucrats hastily launched several test of missiles as to prevent the possible American withdrawal from the 1972 Anti-Ballistic missile treaty. Then, they organized a summit in Beijing, making a closer partnership with the old ideological comrades. Beijing and Moscow formally split in 1960s over doctrinal differences; however, their interest to survive in the post-Cold War era have been converging, and their close cooperation became a pressing issue. And the basis for their truce is the common fear of the Western bureaucrats and their own commoners.

The Western bureaucrats measure all local conditions of ruling on their own manner -- with the generic human rights. The commoners measure the conditions of own ruling by the own economic conditions. Neither one is at its acceptable level in Russia and China, and therefore, the Chinese and Russian chief-executives issued a joint communiqué denouncing the Western bureaucrats who use the human rights as a pretext to intervene in other countries' internal affairs. Thus, the Chinese bureaucrats specifically endorsed the Kremlin's campaign in Chechnya, because they fear for their own record in Tibet.

NATO's intervention in Kosovo galvanized Moscow and Beijing  bureaucracies to seek a closer alliance in order to resist what they see as meddling of the Western bureaucrats in their internal business. Following the Chechen military campaign and the Western demand to halt it, only increased the mounting suspicions of the Moscow and Beijing bureaucrats that the Western bureaucrats are marching to hegemony. While they are separate, neither the Chinese nor Russian bureaucrats have the strategic advantage over the Western bureaucrats; but together, they can create a challenge to the Western interests in the Balkans, Near East, and Southeast Asia.

The Chechen military campaign is supposedly against separatists who want more power for the local Chechen bureaucrats; but, in reality, it is an election campaign for the Kremlin. This election campaign is marked with extensive use of artillery and aviation against civilians, and the Western bureaucrats consider it as a "barbaric" form of ruling, though the Russian bureaucrats consider it as unacceptable interference of the soft Western liberals into their internal affairs. Translating the diplomatic jargon into a plain language, Igor Sergeyev, the Russian Defense Minister, has accused the Americans in using the Chechnya campaign to squeeze the Russian bureaucrats out of the strategically important and oil rich Caucasus and Caspian regions.

Commenting on the last days events, the Russian liberal press, daily "Today" ("Sevodnya"), thus characterized the situation, "a week before the polls, it has become clear that 10 years after the Iron Curtain fell, the old bureaucracy has no other argument to play on other than Chechnya and the nuclear button". However, we have to acknowledge that they did it pretty well for those 10 years, and why they should stop doing it now? If the Western liberals would not fear the demise of the old Soviet bureaucracy in a civil war, the Russian commoners (including the Chechens) would already enjoy the democracy and prosperity; and the American commoners would not unwillingly spend some $20 billion per year, because Clinton-Blair and Co. are trying to keep the brain-dead Soviet bureaucrats alive.

Corruption and fear for their own future took unprecedented high among the top Kremlin officials and, because they are paranoid with their own survival, the Kremlin atmosphere became unbearable for many of them and even pressed one of them to admit, that "we are faced with extremely frightened idiots in the Kremlin, and it's very dangerous for all of us."

Their fear for own future compels them to be extremely corrupt and their extreme corruption increases their fear because they are expecting a retaliation from the masses, which they have been robbing for years. Therefore, there were no surprises for the American investigators who bogged down in the Kremlin way to do business under the counter through the Bank of New York, the founder of which was killed several days ago in his home, in Monaco. Last week, the American investigators came to the Kremlin bureaucrats with a request to check bank statements, audiotapes and documents relating to the possible diversion of nearly $15 billion of our money, which Clinton-Blair and Co. gave to the Kremlin bureaucrats supposedly to feed the starved Russian commoners, who live on one herring in three days.

According to those investigators, the Kremlin bureaucrats resorted to the routine formula and called the request an "unnecessary intrusion" into their internal affairs. Later, the Kremlin bureaucrats sent their own team of fact-erasers (they call them - "fact-finders") to Washington, to find out what the donors really know about their under the counter affairs. The emissaries, of course, claimed not been shown any evidence supporting the corruption allegations, though the American team claimed to show them "irrefutable evidence" of billions of dollars laundered, including hundreds of documents tracing the transfer of money from the Central Bank of Russia through the American banks. Therefore, inoculated by their own boss in the stonewalling technique, the American investigators were not surprised for that Kremlin response.

This issue will be apparently erased and buried on this side of the Atlantic Ocean, but the most damaging to the Kremlin bureaucrats allegations in corruption were addressed at Boris Yeltsin and his family in Europe. The steady stream of accusations, such as that of a Swiss construction firm, which paid credit card bills of close on $1 million for Yeltsin and his two daughters, has finally discredited his shaky leadership and panicked his staff. Yeltsin's daughters received credit cards from Mabetex, a Swiss building concern that has done more than $1 billion in business with the Kremlin bureaucrats, mostly reconstructing and refurbishing the Kremlin and presidential residences. The Swiss authorities have been looking into kickback allegations for a year and they are moving closer to the top ranks of the Kremlin.

In the Russian press reports, virtually the entire old bureaucracy has been accused in the looting of billions of dollars from the treasury and foreign loans. And it is no surprise that a half of the Mediterranean fleet of yachts belong now to the Kremlin bureaucrats and their families.

Despite the present day strained relations between the Russian and American bureaucracies, some analysts assumed that they will restore more amicable relations once the next year elections are over. Thus, a high-ranking Russian diplomat told in an interview to a Moscow radio that, "a bad thing about the American elections is that their candidates sacrifice anything, including long-term national interests, to campaigning... Some in our country would like to copy that habit, but it is a bad idea. Like it or not, Russia and the United States will have to coexist and cooperate even after the polls". Translating the diplomatic jargon into the plain language, whatever the outcome of the next year elections, both bureaucracies will coexist and cooperate in the future ruling and exploiting the American and Russian commoners.

That might be true; however, the question is, which of the commoners will more "enjoy" their own exploitation?

The Russian commoners find themselves amid an economic and moral crisis, while their American pairs find themselves amid only a moral crisis that largely flows from the Oval Office. The Russian problems are more grave and severe because the Soviet era dinosaurs are trying to survive. While they are trying to reinvent the more effective and democratic methods of ruling, the Russian commoners are sinking into the abyss of poverty and despair.

Corruption is inevitable when a half of a nation’s economy is controlled by organized crime, which is a product of the bureaucrats' fear for their own future. Their fear necessitates them to blow their superficial pro-democratic faces and show their pro-totalitarian souls. Thus, a major Yeltsin's assistant, Anatoly Chubais, betrayed himself when he rebuked his liberal opponent, Grigory Yavlinsky, who suggested that it was time to start talks with the Chechen separatists. Chubais told Yavlinsky that anyone who proposes that, in the present conditions, "cannot be viewed as a Russian politician". It is not a coincidence that the Chubais' formula reminiscent to our recent trend -- "who is the real American". To me, it is clear that the "real" Americans or the "real" Russians were, are, and will be only those of us, commoners, who support the established bureaucracies... nothing more, nothing less.

The continuing economic and moral crisis of the Soviet era bureaucracy leads them on the highway of violence and self-destruction. Trying to diffuse this violent self-destruction, the NATO's bureaucrats have been nervously attempting to avert a bloodbath in Chechnya and save the gist of the local resistance as a lever that will keep the central Russian bureaucrats tight on the internal matters for a long time, thus leaving the Balkans and Near East to Clinton-Blair and Co.  In their turn, the Kremlin bureaucrats are sniffing with whom they can talk among the Chechens. In that end, they pronounced Malik Saydulayev as the new chief of the Banana Chechen Republic and sent him to scout around with the task to engage the moderate rebels in negotiations and to cut some deal before the new year.

When the Kremlin hard-liners will win the first phase of the campaign in Chechnya and in Moscow, when they will take  visible control over Grozny and the Duma, then, there will be a room for negotiations about the substantial control.

The Kremlin bureaucrats understand that the Chechen separatist army, under command of Aslan Mashkadov will retreat intact into the southern mountainous region, from where they will make the nightly life of the Kremlin convoys miserable. A protracted guerrilla war means for the Kremlin hard-liners mounting casualties and further economic crisis that will leave them with very slim chances on success in the second phase of the election campaign -- the military control over the southern Russia and political control over the executive branch of the Russian bureaucracy. That will give the Kremlin bureaucrats an additional incentive after the new year to try harder the diplomatic means of war to divide the separatists with concessions to the moderates, while isolating and neutralizing hard-liners. Making long story short, they will follow the old imperial rule - 'divide and conquer'.

Yevgeny Primakov, the former Prime Minister, thus assessed the situation, urging the present Kremlin bureaucrats to avoid isolating themselves from the Western bureaucrats over the Chechen separatists, while scoring some points among the Russian patriotic commoners that will be enough to stay in power for the next four years. Those of us "who are no longer welcomed in the West are now pushing the country toward isolation... They need this isolation to stay in power. But we should not allow Russia to cease being part of the international community" of bureaucrats.

Although Primakov believes that the present Kremlin bureaucrats have overstated their control over the Chechens, something drastic should be done to end the banditry; which, by the way, is a form of an organized crime, and which was organized 10 years ago by those same bureaucrats in order to stay in power but which now is slipping away from their control. And Bill Clinton and his "dream team" helped the Russian bureaucrats to organize the international banditry. Now they are whining and moaning about international terrorism.

Hello! Mr. Clinton, did you get some of our billions that you gave the Kremlin bureaucrats, who then laundered them in the Bank of New York? This is the global encirclement of our money a la Bill and Hillary, and I am wondering if their house in Chappaqua, New York, is a down payment of that organized crime?


12/15/99

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Victor J. Serge created this page and revised it on 04/10/03