Paul
Goble
Staunton, August 7 – August, the
month of vacations, is often referred to as the silly season in the media; but
this year, something important is happening in the American media: its leading
outlets are finally focusing on what most in Russia and its neighbors have long
understood: Vladimir Putin has gone from strength to strength by odious means.
In the last few weeks, Moscow
commentator Aleksandr Nemets says, the leading media in the United States –
Time, Newsweek, the New York Times, the Washington Post, and London’s Economist
as well – have focused on Putin’s odious methods because of his backing of
Donald Trump in the American election (kasparov.ru/material.php?id=57A704084EE38).
After
all the scandalous things Putin has done in the past and largely gotten away
with, opposition to the Republican candidate is so strong that it is causing
these outlets to focus on Putin’s involvement with the US elections, an
involvement that not only doesn’t appear to be helping Trump – his numbers are
down – but is clearly hurting Putin as well.
In
short, after all his crimes including the invasion of Georgia, the invasion of
Ukraine, the murder of dissenters at home and abroad, and his destruction of
Russian democracy, Putin may now be held accountable in the US for what he is
more generally because he is trying to affect the election there.
If that is the
case, it would certainly represent, although Nemets himself doesn’t use the
term, a real and most unwelcome August surprise for the Kremlin leader.
Nemets begins
his commentary by citing one in Newsweek by US analyst Ian Bremmer who argues
that “it is really a good time to be Putin” given the fears in the US, Brexit
in Europe, and the failed Turkish coup, even if the prospects for economic
growth in Russia remain anything but bright.
“All this is
correct,” the Moscow commentator says, because “the situation in the Russian
Federation is extremely bad and getting still worse.” But despite that, “the
Putin regime has as before one powerful resource: its willingness to use the
most odious means and to exploit the chaos connected with them.” Those are the
only tings saving Putin and Company just now.
In the past,
Nemets points out, “Putin used … ‘ordinary terror’ in Russia, in Ukraine, in
the US, and in Europe carried out by the hands of his own special services and sometimes
the hands of Al Qaeda or ISIS.” Now,
however, he is using “cyber-terror” in the hopes of bringing to power Trump,
something who appears to be pro-Russian and would “intensify chaos both in
America and in the entire world.”
If Putin and Trump succeed, the Kremlin would
have “a free hand in Ukraine, in the South Caucasus, in Syria, in the Baltic
countries and in many other regions. And ‘the creator of chaos’ could as a
result return the super-high prices for oil and gas,” the ultimate dreams of
Putin and his regime, Nemets says.
Odiousness, “in the first instance terror of
all kinds and also false propaganda” is “the Kremlin’s basic instrument and
chaos is its final goal.” Any chaos from
the Kremlin’s point of view is good because it keeps others from recognizing
what is going on and organizing in response.
Many Russian opposition figures as well as a
large part of the citizenry in Ukraine and “to a lesser extent the citizens of
the Baltic countries, Poland, Romania, Bulgaria, Sweden and Finland have
already taken with greater or lesser success the very useful courses” about
Putin’s odious nature already “in 2014-2016.”
“Canada with its 1.5 million ethnic
Ukrainians” has also begun to study this special Putin subject. But until recently, the population of the US
had “preferred to ignore” the obvious odiousness of the Putin regime. Now that may be changing, and if it is, Putin’s
latest moves could backfire against him in ways he cannot even imagine.
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