{"id":101175,"date":"2013-12-26T10:08:23","date_gmt":"2013-12-26T10:08:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/?p=101175"},"modified":"2013-12-26T10:11:48","modified_gmt":"2013-12-26T10:11:48","slug":"vladimir-vladimirovich-grey-lady","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/editorials\/vladimir-vladimirovich-grey-lady\/","title":{"rendered":"Vladimir Vladimirovich and the Grey Lady"},"content":{"rendered":"
Robert Bonomo <\/strong>
\nRINF Alternative News<\/strong><\/div>\n
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Bill Keller, editorialist for\u00a0The NY Times<\/i>\u00a0and former executive editor of the paper, has recently penned a strong\u00a0attack<\/a>\u00a0on Vladimir Putin arguing that Putin\u2019s leadership \u201cdeliberately distances Russia from the socially and culturally liberal West\u201d, describing the Kremlin\u2019s policies as \u201claws giving official sanction to the terrorizing of gays and lesbians, the jailing of members of a punk protest group for offenses against the Russian Orthodox Church, the demonizing of Western-backed pro-democracy organizations as \u2018foreign agents\u2019, expansive new laws on treason, limits on foreign adoptions.\u201d<\/div>\n
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Keller, who during his tenure as executive editor of\u00a0The NY Times<\/i>\u00a0argued for the invasion of Iraq and wrote\u00a0glowingly<\/a>\u00a0of Paul Wolfowitz, makes no mention of Moscow\u2019s diplomatic maneuvers that successfully avoided a US military intervention in Syria or the Russian asylum given to Eric Snowden. Keller, who had\u00a0supported<\/a>\u00a0the US intervention in Syria by writing, \u201cbut in Syria, I fear prudence has become fatalism, and our caution has been the father of missed opportunities, diminished credibility and enlarged tragedy,\u201d also made no mention of Seymour Hersh\u2019s stinging dissection of the Obama administration\u2019s misinformation campaign regarding the sarin attacks in Syria. Hersh\u2019s\u00a0piece<\/a>, which drives grave doubts into the case against Assad actually having carried out the attacks, was\u00a0not published<\/a>\u00a0in\u00a0The New Yorker<\/i>\u00a0or in\u00a0The<\/i>\u00a0Washington Post<\/i>, publications that regularly run his work.<\/div>\n
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Keller focuses on a Russian law that bans the promotion of gay lifestyles in Russia, a far cry from \u201cgiving official sanction to the terrorizing of gays and lesbians\u201d, while failing to mention that according to his own paper, 88% of Russians support the law.<\/p>\n

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Putin did\u00a0expel<\/a>\u00a0the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) from Russia, cutting off the $50 million in aid, most of which went to pro-democracy and anti-corruption groups. The Kremlin believed that much of this money wound up supporting the protest movement against Putin that emerged in 2011. If Russian funding had been suspected in the Occupy Wall Street Movement would\u00a0The New York Times<\/i>\u00a0have supported Putin for promoting social equality in the US? If the punk band Pussy Riot had broken into a prominent Jewish temple in New York, instead of a Moscow cathedral, and defamed it to call attention to the millions of Palestinians living in refugee camps, would the young ladies have done some time? And if so, would they have received\u00a0support<\/a>\u00a0from all corners of stardom?<\/div>\n

The European Model<\/i><\/b><\/h3>\n
Quoting Dmitri Trenin, Keller argues that Putin sees Europe in decline, \u201cit\u2019s national sovereignty\u2026 is superseded by supranational institutions.\u201d Is Putin mistaken in his assumption? Maybe ask the people of\u00a0Greece<\/a>,Spain<\/a>\u00a0or\u00a0Ireland<\/a>? Keller also mentions \u201climits on foreign adoptions\u201d but fails to mention the cause, the Magnitsky Act,\u00a0which imposed\u00a0“visa and banking restrictions on Russian officials implicated in human rights abuses.” \u00a0The Kremlin saw this law as the perfect example of US meddling in internal Russian affairs.<\/div>\n
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The heart of the Magnistsky saga was the death in Russia, while under custody, of an attorney for Hermitage Capital, a hedge fund run by British citizen William Browder. Browder made billions in Russia before running afoul of Russian authorities. His Hermitage Capital was funded by the Lebanese national Edmond Safra and eventually claimed to have lost $300 million after having moved billions out of Russia. Browder, who has renounced his US citizenship, lobbied hard in Washington to have the Magnitsky Act passed.\u00a0\u00a0Why was the US involved in passing a law to protect Lebanese and British capital and a Russian prisoner? America hasn’t enough\u00a0trouble<\/a>\u00a0with its own prison system that it needs to legislate on the Russian penal system? Are there no American politicians who have been\u00a0implicated<\/a>\u00a0in human rights abuses?Keller\u2019s final point is that Putin is being heavy handed over the Ukrainian\/EU integration crisis, but Keller avoids discussing the deep historic and ethnic links between Russia and Ukraine. Most Americans would agree that Russia should stay out of NAFTA negotiations, seeing North America as clearly not within the Russian sphere of influence. Ukrainians are deeply\u00a0divided<\/a>\u00a0over the integration with Europe, so why not let the Ukrainians and Russians work out their trade relations without the American government getting involved?<\/div>\n

Khodorkovsky<\/i><\/b><\/h3>\n
Probably more than any other topic,\u00a0The NY Times<\/i>\u00a0has repeatedly published articles in defense of the long imprisoned and recently freed Russian oligarch Mikhail\u00a0<\/b>Khodorkovsky, a man whose rise to power was filled with unsavory schemes to appropriate businesses which were once the property of the Russian people.\u00a0The NY Times<\/i>\u00a0Sabrina Tavernese\u00a0wrote<\/a>in 2001 that he had “orchestrated a series a flagrant corporate abuses of minority shareholders unparalleled in the short history of modern Russian capitalism.”Khdorkovsky eventually wound up the billionaire owner of Yukos Oil, which he planned to sell to\u00a0Exxon Mobil<\/a>. Khdorkovsky also had political ambitions, creating the Open Russian Foundation and putting Henry Kissinger and Lord Jacob Rothschild on the board of directors. He was clearly eyeing political power by making close ties with the West, even being named to the Advisory Board of the Carlyle Group, all of which made him a potential threat\u00a0to the Kremlin.<\/div>\n
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The Khodorovsky affair was a complex battle for power in Russia with Khodorkovsky playing the Western powers against the strongly nationalistic Putin. But at\u00a0The NY Times<\/i>\u00a0editorialist Joe Nocera in\u00a0four pieces<\/a>\u00a0on Khodorkovsky never delves into the complexities of Putin\u2019s strategy to keep Western interests at bay, preferring to present a black and white scenario of \u2018western liberal\u2019 rule of law against the \u2018authoritarian\u2019 Putin.<\/div>\n
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Curiously,\u00a0The NY Times<\/i>\u00a0doesn’t seem so interested in Harvard\u2019s Russia Project which ended in disgrace and professor Andrei Shleifer, Larry Summers protege, being forced to pay a $2 million fine for\u00a0enriching<\/a>\u00a0himself under the guise of a USIAD program where he was to \u2018teach\u2019 Russians about capitalism. He gave them an interesting lesson, yet was not forced to resign his post at Harvard, possibly due to his close\u00a0relationship<\/a>\u00a0with Summers. Nocera hasn’t written one article on that scandal which is much more relevant to Americans and their iconic institutions, but which also might make him a few enemies closer to home.<\/div>\n

Putin and American Values<\/i><\/b><\/h3>\n
\u00a0<\/i><\/b><\/div>\n
Most Americans see Eric Snowden as\u00a0whistle blower<\/a>\u00a0and not a traitor, yet\u00a0The<\/i>NY Times<\/i>\u00a0star editorialist, Thomas Friedman, isn’t so sure, \u201cThe fact is, he dumped his data and fled to countries that are hostile to us,\u201d though he doesn’t elaborate on why Russia is a \u2018hostile\u2019 nation and he advises Snowden to come home and face the music if he\u2019s truly a patriot, \u201cIt would mean risking a lengthy jail term, but also trusting the fair-mindedness of the American people.\u201d<\/div>\n
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Putin is a social conservative and a fierce patriot who, like many Americans, opposes regime change in the name of democracy. The American people, after failed interventions in Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya,\u00a0agree<\/a>\u00a0with him- both Putin and\u00a0Americans<\/a>, unlike\u00a0The<\/i>\u00a0NY Times,\u00a0<\/i>vehemently opposed a US intervention in Syria. It seems Putin has more in common with the opinions of Americans than does\u00a0The<\/i>\u00a0NY Times<\/i>, which begs the question, why is\u00a0The<\/i>\u00a0NY Times<\/i>\u00a0so hell bent on demonizing the President of the Russian Federation when he’s supported by more than\u00a060%<\/a>\u00a0of the Russian people?<\/div>\n
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The New York Times<\/i>\u00a0has written\u00a0extensively<\/a>\u00a0about the gay rights issue in Russia but\u00a045%<\/a>\u00a0of Americans still think that homosexuality is a sin and as the ‘Duck Dynasty’ controversy has revealed, homosexuality in America is still a very divisive issue. Is the prohibition against publicly speaking in favor of gay lifestyles in Russia such an important stumbling block to ties between the two nations when the vast majority of Russians support the law?Americans probably don’t approve of roads where members of one religion can drive while members of another religion must walk, as occurs in Hebron and reported on by\u00a0Ynet<\/a>, “Jewish residents are allowed to cross the road by vehicle, but Palestinians are now only permitted to cross by foot or by bicycle.” \u00a0They probably wouldn’t look fondly on back of the bus seating for\u00a0women<\/a>, yet in spite of this type of segregation in a country that claims to be democratic,\u00a0The<\/i>\u00a0NY Times<\/i>\u00a0doesn’t feel compelled to demonize Mr. Netanyahu and his ‘socially conservative’ Likud party.<\/div>\n

The Interests of the American People<\/i><\/b><\/h3>\n
Just as\u00a0The NY Times<\/i>\u00a0despises Putin and Russia, it\u2019s equallyenamored<\/a>\u00a0with Israel. Imagine if the millions of Palestinian refugees were not in camps because of their mother\u2019s religion but instead because they were LGBT? What if Netanyahu\u00a0were held to the same standard as Mr. Putin? How many millions of Palestinian Khodorkovsky\u2019s are languishing in refugee camps in their own country? \u00a0It seems that Mr. Keller, Mr. Friedman and Mr. Nocera are much more interested in the rights of Khodorkovsky and William Browder than they are in the rights of Palestinian children living in squalor under an Israeli blockade in Gaza.<\/div>\n
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Saudi Arabia and Israel, through its surrogate\u00a0AIPAC<\/a>, lobbied hard for war in Syria and both supposed allies are furiously attempting to\u00a0undermine<\/a>\u00a0peace talks with Iran. \u00a0The government Putin leads brokered the deal to avoid US involvement in Syria, played an important role in the Iranian peace initiative and also allowed Americans a glimpse into the massive surveillance program the NSA has hoisted upon them by giving refuge to Eric Snowden.<\/div>\n
Just as Americans would not look fondly at the Kremlin interfering in domestic American politics, so the Kremlin pushes back when it see US interference in it\u2019s internal affairs, a good example being American\u00a0aid<\/a>\u00a0to opposition groups during the 2011 Moscow protests against Putin. \u00a0If the US can accept serious human rights violations by supposed allies\u00a0Israel<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Saudi Arabia<\/a>, can\u2019t it also accept that Russia has its own way of governing itself, based on its own history and culture?<\/div>\n
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The NY Times<\/i>\u00a0does not represent the best interests of most Americans, nor does it use its powerful voice to protect the millions persecuted within the realms of so called allies.\u00a0\u00a0The NY Times<\/i>\u00a0represents a small sector of US power, bent on propagating special interests at the expense of the vast majority of Americans.<\/div>\n
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Mr. Putin certainly acts in the best interests of Russia, but curiously enough, by working in his own interest, he\u00a0has done more to protect the 4th<\/sup>\u00a0Amendment than the constitutional law professor currently occupying the White House.\u00a0\u00a0In Syria he was protecting Russian interests, but by doing so he kept the US out of an intervention that could have easily developed into a major war.\u00a0\u00a0If it had been up to\u00a0The NY Times<\/i>, we would have intervened in Syria and Snowden would be behind bars awaiting the mercy of the Obama Administration.So who is a better friend of the American people?\u00a0\u00a0There are no doubts that\u00a0The NY Times<\/i>\u00a0is a better friend of the Khodorkovsky\u2019s and William Browder\u2019s of the world but Americans might actually be better off if their government listened more to Putin and less the Grey Lady.Robert Bonomo is a blogger, novelist and esotericist. \u00a0Download his latest novel,\u00a0Your Love Incomplete<\/i>, for free\u00a0here<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Robert Bonomo RINF Alternative News Bill Keller, editorialist for\u00a0The NY Times\u00a0and former executive editor of the paper, has recently penned a strong\u00a0attack\u00a0on Vladimir Putin arguing that Putin\u2019s leadership \u201cdeliberately distances Russia from the socially and culturally liberal West\u201d, describing the Kremlin\u2019s policies as \u201claws giving official sanction to the terrorizing of gays and lesbians, the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[487,461],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-101175","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-breaking-news","7":"category-editorials"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/101175","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=101175"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/101175\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=101175"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=101175"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=101175"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}