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Vladimir Putin and the Snow Revolution

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The “Snow Revolution” part of the title comes from the Epilogue of the book “The Man Without a Face:  The Unlikely Rise of Vladimir Putin,” by Masha Gessen. A dissident put up a Facebook post asking people to wear white ribbons on their arms to show they protested the announced election of Putin to be president of the Russian Federation in December 2011. The author estimated as many as 150,000 people arrived at the protest wearing white armbands or some other white article. The Russian people deserve better if only a few of the allegations and speculations put forward by the author about Putin are true.

Gessen was interviewed by John Williams of The New York Times, and he said she had cataloged disastrous events “…and lay much of it at Putin’s feet. How much of this is concretely provable?” Gessen’s response was that conclusive evidence would have to be obtained by law enforcement, and “None of the murders or acts of terror that have occurred in the last 12 years have been properly investigated.”

How many people arrived to join the Snow Revolution protest? The estimates vary widely, but are significantly lower that what the author predicts. An article on Newyorker.com by Julia Ioffe says the protestors claimed 85,000, the police estimated 25,000, and the media said 50,000. There no dispute that there were thousands of people all over Russia who protested the “…rudely falsified elections.” There is an article with photos of thousands of people in the the streets, and many are holding white ballons. What is important now is what happens with the protest movement. An article titled, “Russia’s Revolutionaries Ponder Next Move” includes a photo of many people carrying white balloons. The protestors are said to face the challenge of creating a unified front.

Russian protest leaders have never pretended that things would be easy. “One peaceful march will not change our country,” protest organizer Boris Nemtsov said on the eve of one rally. “We are in for a long, hard struggle.”

I’ll give a brief review Gessen’s book, which gives background for why there is a Snow Revolution. The book details how Putin made it from being a self-described thug in his youth to becoming the brutal leader of the Russian Federation. He was a bureaucrat in the KGB, and claimed he resigned from that secret police organization when the Soviet Union was collapsing. A man named Sobchak worked himself into being chairman of the Leningrad City Council. He hired Putin as an assistant, because he was said to know “…that it is wiser to pick your KGB handler yourself than to have one picked for you.” There were several steps from there to leadership, and apparently one high level person after another picked Putin as the person to be beside them believing he could be trusted and controlled amongst all the political intrigue. The last in this chain was Boris Yeltsin, who had launched democracy in the Russian Federation with great hope but was forced to resign.

Putin immediately began to transform Russia back into the USSR. He is said to have used state control of the media, murder, corruption, and perhaps even terrorism to retain power. The book discusses how he took control of the government while making himself an incredibly wealthy man. Critics were beaten, imprisoned, or murdered. Some critics died of mysterious poisons which could not be obtained by anyone other than a central government.

The accounts reminded me of a book I reviewed titled “Spy Catcher” by former senior British intelligence officer Peter Wright. There is a description of a container of antidotes for all the known Soviet poisons that was kept with Soviet agents who had escaped the USSR to turn themselves in to British authorities. I believe Wright would also have said that Putin was following the advice of Lenin in keeping control of the country. “Lenin understood better than anyone how to gain control of a country, and, just as important, how to keep it. Lenin believed the political class had to control the men with the guns, and the intelligence service, and by these means could ensure that neither the Army nor another political class could challenge power.

I fear for the author. She is obviously at risk of violence if only a fraction of what she writes about Vladimir Putin is true. She writes in the Prologue that she worked as a journalist in war zones “…but this was the most frightening story I ever had to write:  never before had I been forced to describe a reality so emotionless and cruel, so clear and so merciless, so corrupt and so utterly devoid of remorse.” She lives in Moscow, and told The New York Times interviewer that she had thought of leaving, but “I love my home, my friends, my life. And if Putin doesn’t like me he can leave.”

Recent statistics on this web site indicate there are large numbers of readers in the Russian Republic and Ukrainia. I thought of those readers as I was reading Gessen’s book and prepared the review and this post and wondered how many Russian readers would be Putin supporters and how many would be protestors.

To readers in the United States, I think we should all renew our appreciation of the freedoms we have. I read a joke said to have been told quietly within the Soviet Union. The joke isn’t all that funny, but I think it is pertinent. An American and Russian were arguing about which country was best. The American said, “We are so free that I could stand on a street corner in New York and shout ‘Reagan is an idiot’, and nothing bad would happen to me, although some might stop to argue with me.” The Russian replied, “That’s nothing. I could stand on a street corner of Moscow and shout ‘Reagan is an idiot’, and nothing bad would happen to me, and no one would even argue with me.”

It’s My Fault

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Art Buchwald (bless him) wrote an unforgettable article apologizing that the Vietnam War was his fault. The gist of the article was that several people warned him that there would be a full scale shooting war in Vietnam if he voted for Barry Goldwater for President. I haven’t found documentation of the article, although I remember it quite well. What I have found is the introduction to a 1965 Time Magazine article that asks the question, “How would the U.S. have fared if Barry Goldwater had been elected President? The mind boggles to think of it, mused Columnist Art Buchwald last week in the New York Herald Tribune. Nonetheless, Buchwald did his deadpan best to guess how things really would have turned out under Goldwater. To begin with, he wrote, the Viet Cong would have blown up an American barracks. Goldwater would have immediately called for a strike on military bases in North Viet Nam and announce a ‘new tit-for-tat policy.’ Democrats would make speeches that Goldwater was ‘trigger-happy’ and was trying to get us into…”

Unfortunately, the link ends at that point and indicates, “To read the entire article, you must be a TIME Subscriber.” However, I will ask you to depend on my less-than-reliable memory. I recall what followed was humorous and thought-provoking. I remember that Mr. Buchwald apologized (in this or some other article), saying something to the effect, “They told me there would be a war in Vietnam if I voted for Goldwater. I voted for Goldwater, and they were right. It’s my fault.”

That brings us to the current political situation. I was told that several bad things would happen if I didn’t vote for Barrack Obama. I was told the economic condition of the country would not improve. I was told that the unemployment rate would continue to exceed eight percent (not counting people who are underemployed or have given up on finding a job). I was told Guantanamo would remain the imprisonment site for suspected terrorists. I was told Guantanamo and military tribunals that would be held there would be the source of recruitment of others who wanted to commit terrorist acts against the U.S. In summary, I was told there would be many, many bad things that would happen if I didn’t vote for Barrack Obama. I ignored the warnings and didn’t vote for Obama. How can I possibly atone for my mistake?

I’ll end the sarcasm with the observation that I understand politicians will say many things to be elected. Newly elected Presidents then sit at the desk in the Oval Office and begin to receive classified intelligence briefings which explain why some of their promised policies might not be wise. They also apparently learn (perhaps to their dismay) that they do not control the legislative branch of government or the private economy. They are the leader of the most powerful country in the world, but there are limits for even them. I suggest we all keep that in mind as the Presidential campaign, which is predicted to be the most vicious in at least recent memory, proceeds.

Underground Economy

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Dr. Art Robinson’s wrote a book “Common Sense in 2012,” and a quick summary is that it presents his positions for his campaign to be elected to the House of Representatives from Oregon. He is running for Congress as a citizen volunteer committed to help stop Congress from exceeding the powers granted by the Constitution. I mention in the review that reading the book prompted me to send a donation to Dr. Robinson’s campaign despite the fact he is running for office in Oregon and I live in Colorado.

Reading the book made me wonder how many more businesses are going underground to avoid the interference of government. I want to make it clear that Dr. Robinson does not mention or suggest “going underground.”  An article with the title “The Rise of the Underground” in the Wall Street Journal by Patrick Barta looked to be a good place to start in researching the subject. Most of the article is about people in India peddling on street corners because they have been laid off or couldn’t find a job in the first place. There are several examples given, and most people make a few dollars a day selling food and other commodities. One creative woman was earning $10 a day selling shots of “medicinal wine,” wine mixed with herbs, to truck drivers and motorcyclists. The article called it “…an adult version of the neighborhood lemonade stand.” Of course such a stand would face numerous problems in the United States. There are many localities that require a license to operate a lemonade stand, and I doubt that could be expanded to selling alcohol.

The article also describes “informal workers” in the U.S. “…including off-the book maids, gardeners and ‘gypsy’ cab drivers…” It is estimated as much as 10 percent of the U.S. economy is off-the books (not including the large illicit drug trade,) and the percentage is undoubtedly growing as people are laid off and are forced into doing all manner of part-time contract work.

An article titled “The Mysterious Case of the Disappearing Prosperity” by Baron Bodissey provides some interesting analysis about why the underground economy exists. It is no surprise that taxes play a role. An example is given of someone repairing a computer, and the job is worth $200. You can accept the job to do the repair and reduce your income by paying taxes, demand that the purchaser pay more so you can pay the taxes and still make the $200, or both of you can agree that the money will change hands without the government being told. Massachusetts has created a bureaucracy with the strange title, “Joint Task Force on the Underground Economy and Employee Misclassification” with a toll-free number to allow crooks who aren’t reporting income to be reported. Apparently that allows some people to earn money by being a paid government informer.

The federal government also wants to get its share of any “earned income.” There is a part of Obamacare that requires businesses to file forms not only for non-employees who are paid more than $600 but also for every business they paid more than $600. That’s good news for people with accounting experience, because businesses will need more employees to file all the required forms. That will give government more money to mismanage, but I can’t think of a benefit to the businesses.

Barter is also becoming more popular. Perhaps someone offers to mow your yard if you will prepare them a resume. No money changes hands, although I expect Massachusetts would expect both parties to pay taxes on the value of the services exchanged if they are reported by an informer. The IRS certainly believes taxes must be paid on barter. The link gives instructions on which forms are to be submitted to “…include in gross income in the year of receipt the fair market value of goods and services received in exchange for goods or services you provide.” The IRS is aware that “The internet has provided a medium for new growth in the bartering exchange industry.”

The article by Mr. Bodissey and Dr. Robinson’s both mention a comment by Ronald Reagan. “The government’s view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases. If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. If it stops moving, subsidize it.”

Why George H. W. Bush Ended Operation Desert Shield in Iraq

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I recently posted a review of the book “Second Chance:  Three Presidents and the Crisis of American Superpower” by Zbigniew Brzezinski in which he gives President George H. W. Bush a “solid B” for his foreign policy performance. However he said that Bush I’s greatest failure was stopping the Persian Gulf War,or “Operation Desert Shield,” before the last twenty divisions of Saddam Hussein’s Republican Guard were attacked and destroyed. As a result, the Guard was able to crush a Shiite rebellion that followed the withdrawal of collation forces, which allowed Hussein to remain in power. My recollection was that Bush ended the war because that was what was required by United Nations resolutions. I decided this was a subject worth researching, because the decision has had far-reaching foreign policy effects.

The first thing I found in researching the issue was a YouTube video of Bush announcing the end of the war to a joint session of Congress. Most of the over five minute video is of standing ovations by every member of Congress. The longest ovation was for Cheney and Powell for their role for planning and executing the war.

The Persian Gulf War Resolution was adopted by the House of Representatives and Senate January 12, 1991 and authorized the use of U.S. military force against Iraq “pursuant to United Nations Security Council Resolution 678.”  That resolution gave Hussein until January 15, 1991 to withdraw from Kuwait. The UN would employ “all necessary means” to liberate Kuwait after that date. In addition to the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, the resolution specifically mentions the risks of Iraq using weapons of mass destruction. “Whereas, Iraq’s conventional, chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons and ballistic missile programs and its demonstrated willingness to use weapons of mass destruction pose a grave threat to world peace…”  “Operation Desert Shield” was the name selected for the operation probably because of the intent to prevent Hussein from expanding his invasion into Saudi Arabia.

The war began on January 16 with heavy bombing and missile strikes. The land war began on February 23 after Iraq set massive fires in Kuwait’s oil fields. The war lasted a mere 100 hours with coalition forces easily and brutally rolling up the badly outmatched Iraq forces.

UN Resolution 686 states that the members would “…bring their military presence in Iraq to an end as soon as possible consistent with achieving the objectives…” Therefore, after Kuwait had been liberated and the Iraqi army was in full retreat, the UN stipulated that hostilities would end. Those were the orders given by Bush I.

An excellent report on the war and why Bush decided to end it when he did clearly states the war was ended in concert with the UN resolutions that were so crucial in arranging the delicate coalition of Arab and other countries to end Iraq’s occupation of Kuwait. Bush knew that the war had been approved by the UN to end to occupation of Kuwait, and any expansion would result in difficulties for the coalition and perhaps an even bigger war. There was also the question of swinging the balance of power from Iraq to Iran.

History has shown that the failure to take out the last divisions of Hussein’s Republican Guard has had a long lasting and obviously negative effect on the foreign policies of the United States. It is quite easy with the clarity of a rear view mirror to see what should have been done. However, I can’t help but wonder what skilled diplomats, such as Zbigniew Brzezinski, would have done or what they would have counseled should have been done if they had been in the position of advising Bush I. Would they have advised ignoring the UN resolutions that had been so skillfully crafted and negotiated that led to the liberation of Kuwait, or would they have been more aggressive and “imperialist” and ordered coalition forces to crush remaining Iraq forces in violation of the UN resolutions. It doesn’t take too much imagination to picture what would have happened in Iraq if the Republican Guard and effectively the government of Iraq had been destroyed. The Shiite uprising would undoubtedly have created a civil war that would, I speculate, make the current instability in Iraq look mild. What would the United States have done then? Would Brzezinski have advised Bush he needed to establish control to fill the vacuum left by the defeat of Hussein?

My rear view mirror assessment of what Bush I did in Iraq was exactly what most diplomats would have recommended, and he would have been criticized even more strongly if he had ignored the intent of UN resolutions and taken out the Iraq government. Too bad things didn’t work out well after his decisions, but I predict things would have been worse absent his decisions.

Iraq and Nuclear and Chemical Weapons

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A review of the book “Atomic Obsession:  Nuclear Alarmism from Hiroshima to Al-Qaeda” by John Mueller was recently posted, and there were a few comments in that book  about Iraq’s  interest in chemical and nuclear weapons that, in my opinion, give an incomplete picture.

There is a comment that the Israeli attack on a nuclear reactor in Iraq in 1981 was ineffective. Wikipedia has extensive information about the reactor and the attack. The reactor was purchased from France in 1976 along with 72 kilograms of 93% enriched uranium. The purchase agreement stipulated that the reactor would not be used for military purposes, and French engineers said the reactor was “…unsuitable for making bombs.”

The Israelis were not the first to attack the facility. Iran had attacked and damaged the site with two bombers in 1980 shortly after the outbreak of the Iran-Iraq war. Israeli officials had encouraged the Iranian attack. The Israelis attack involved eight bombers that flew through Saudi and Jordanian airspace in their attack speaking in Saudi Arabic and using Jordanian signals for cover. Eight of the sixteen bombs struck the containment dome of the reactor. On the issue of whether the attack had disabled the reactor, the French originally agreed to aid in reconstruction, but withdrew from the project in 1984. The reactor “…remained in its damaged state until the 1991 Persian Gulf War, when it was completely destroyed by coalition air strikes…”

Perhaps the reference to the ineffectiveness of the strike did not refer to the reactor that was damaged and not rebuilt. Saddam Hussein ordered “…a much larger underground program…” The reactor that was attacked was estimated to have been able to produce enough plutonium to construct one nuclear weapon per year and the new program was designed to make six bombs a year.

An article titled “Papers From Iraqi Archive Reveal Conspiratorial Mind-Set of Hussein” by Michael R. Gordon published in the New York Times on October 25, 2011 provides some interesting information about Iraq and chemical and nuclear weapons. American forces captured extensive archives of discussions between Hussein and government officials during the 2003 invasion. One document quoted Hussein boasting “…that Iraq had a chemical weapons arsenal (during the Iraq-Iran war) that would ‘exterminate by the thousands’.” He also said “Once Iraq walks out victorious (over Iran) there will be no Israel.” He said of the Israeli attack on the reactor, “Technically, they are right in all of their attempts to harm Iraq.”

On the subject of chemical weapons, there was a post titled “Which President Lied About Weapons of Mass Destruction” dated December 31, 2010 that gives details of Saddam Hussein using chemical agents both in the war with Iran and against Kurds in his own country. According to a report on 60 Minutes Hussein admitted to his U.S. interrogator George L. Piro that he had feared he could not survive an inevitable attack from Iran “without the perception he had weapons of mass destruction. He told his generals that he would order the use of chemical weapons if Iraq was attacked, and he did that to hold Iran at bay. Saddam Hussein lied, and Bush and his advisors believed the lie.”

Quality of College Education

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President Obama said in a speech at a college in Boca Raton, FL where he showcased his “Buffet Rule” to tax millionaires that college is the most important investment a young American can make. I suggest that parents and prospective college students think be a bit skeptical about that comment. There have been numerous recent reports with different conclusions. I’ll mention first a post from last year that had the title, “What are Young Americans Getting from College?” That posting documents studies that many college students haven’t improved their critical thinking or writing skills after four years in college. What they have done is rack up tens of thousands of dollars in student loan debt, and tuition rates are still increasing. Those who graduate with less “marketable” degrees often aren’t able to find a job with a salary that will pay both living expenses and the interest due on those loans. Those who have student loans and don’t finish their degree are in an even worse position.

Money Magazine had a short article by Ali Velshi in the March 2012 edition titled “It’s Time to Give College a Rethink.” He warns “Americans are too concerned with whether their kids are ‘finding themselves’—at an average yearly tab of $17,100 (public in-state) to $38,600 (private).” The costs are justifiable if the student graduates with a degree in engineering or sciences. They would seem not to be justifiable if the course of studies is early childhood education (average annual pay $36,000), counseling/psychology ($29,000) and probably a long list of liberal arts degrees. I liked his closing sentence, which points out quite nicely that not all degrees are equal when it comes to finding a job in the real world. “At the least, make sure your kid knows the highest-paid English majors aren’t poets; they’re technical writers.”

There were some interesting facts about student loan debt in an article by Kevin Simpson on the front page of the February 29, 2012 Denver Post titled “A degree in debt.” There is a warning that student loans can’t be wiped out by bankruptcy. “The joke is there’s treason, murder, kidnapping, and student loans—no statute of limitations.” The article suggests that students consider the less expensive option of getting an associate’s degree at a community college before transferring to a four-year institution. That would reduce the overall costs, and the student would at least have the associate’s degree if for some reason they can’t complete the full degree program.

There continue to be compelling reasons to go to college, and not the least is to learn the skills to do the work required in, for example, an engineering career. Another reason is described in an article in the April 1, 2012 Denver post written by Dave Maney titled, “College degrees, resumes so old-school.” The Supreme Court ruled in 1971 that employers are prohibited from giving prospective employees IQ tests. However, employers know that colleges determine whether someone is qualified to attend by their SAT and ACT scores. Attending and graduating therefore is important for employers who have to sort through the many candidates who applying for jobs. As a hiring manager I recognized for many positions a college degree was the ticket required to gain an interview.

The bottom line is that young people consider whether the degree program they want to pursue is marketable and whether the institutions being considered provide good value for the costs. In education as in everything else, it is advisable to be a smart consumer.