March 22, 2001 

This Date's Issues:   5163 • 5164 • 5165

Johnson's Russia List
#5164
22 March 2001
davidjohnson@erols.com

[Note from David Johnson:
1. AFP: Moscow threatens to expel "hundreds" in US spy row.
2. Izvestia: PUTIN: WE'VE TAKEN A STEP TOWARD CONSOLIDATION OF SOCIETY. An interview with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
3. the eXile: Matt Taibbi, VOTE OR LOSE! MARCH MADNESS CONTINUES.]

*******

#1
Moscow threatens to expel "hundreds" in US spy row

MOSCOW, March 22 (AFP) -
Russian security services threatened to expel "hundreds" of US diplomats
from Moscow in a tit-for-tat reprisal over Washington's decision to throw
out 50 Moscow agents for alleged spying.

The row is the most serious between the two countries since the height of
the Cold War and Russian President Vladimir Putin's top foreign policy aide
angrily denounced Washington for getting engaged in "spy mania."

Called in for an explanation, US Ambassador to Moscow James Collins emerged
stony-faced from his 30-minute meeting with Deputy Foreign Minister Georgy
Mamedov on Thursday morning.

"I have no comment. Whatever comment will come from Washington or from the
(Russian) government," Collins told a swarm of reporters waiting outside
the Stalin-era foreign ministry building.

Meanwhile the RIA Novosti state news agency cited one senior Russian
security service source as saying that "hundreds" of US embassy official
might now be expelled.

The source noted that 190 Russians worked in Washington embassy while some
1,100 US diplomats were in Moscow. The foreign ministry said it was still
preparing its own official statement.

Piling on the diplomatic pressure, the foreign ministry further denounced
Washington's intermittent contacts with Chechen separatist gurrillas, who
are waging an 18-month war against Russian troops, as an "openly unfriendly
act."

Some 50 Russians accredited to Moscow's diplomatic missions in the United
States are affected by Washington's order, the harshest since 1986 when
then president Ronald Reagan expels some 80 Soviet diplomats out of the
country.

Moscow in response expelled five Washington diplomats and ordered all of
Soviet personnel then working in Moscow's US embassy to quit.

However, only six of the Russians ordered out this week are directly
implicated in the Robert Hanssen case -- a top FBI agent recently arrested
on suspicion of spying -- and have been formally declared "personae non
grata," according to US media reports.

Hanssen's arrest has shaken US-Russia relations in recent weeks, with some
diplomatic sources calling him one of the top and most damaging US spies
that the Kremlin had ever managed to recruit.

Moscow, for example, now knows that a secret tunnel had been built under
its Washington embassy.

But intelligence experts are disputing which of the two sides benefited
more from the dig -- US agents overhearing informative Russian
conversations or Moscow agents feeding the Washington spooks false or
misleading reports.

RIA Novosti cited Moscow diplomats as saying that Russia's response would
be "adequate and proportional."

The report added: "This is an exclusively political step (by the United
States) which intends to show Russia its place in the new world order."

Moscow further suggested the expulsions proved that the US State Department
headed by Colin Powell was waging a fierce political battle for influence
with the FBI.

White House and State Department officials declined to comment on the
matter but senior officials in US President George W. Bush's administration
confirmed that Powell met Russian Ambassador Yury Ushakov on Wednesday to
discuss the Hanssen case.

Powell "did see the Russian ambassador today on that subject," one official
said of the meeting which came amid speculation Washington was preparing to
take drastic action over the Hanssen affair.

In an interview with Russian media before the expulsion story broke, Putin
dismissed fears that recent spy scandals could sour relations between
Moscow and Washington, telling the media "not to over-dramatize the
situation."

"As for the new US administration's policy toward Russia, it's not worth
such drama. In any country, a new leadership always rethinks the former
policies," Putin told reporters in the interview published Thursday.

*******

#2
VLADIMIR PUTIN: WE'VE TAKEN A STEP TOWARD CONSOLIDATION OF SOCIETY
Author: Mikhail Kozhokin (Izvestia), Vladimir Sungorkin (Komsomolskaya
Pravda), Pavel Gusev (Moskovsky Komsomolets), Alexander Potapov (Trud)
Source: Izvestia, March 22, 2001, pp. 1, 3
[from WPS Monitoring Agency, www.wps.ru/e_index.html]
- PRESIDENT PUTIN WON THE ELECTION ON MARCH 26 LAST YEAR. HERE HE
LOOKS BACK AT THE ACHIEVEMENTS AND CHALLENGES OF THE PAST YEAR. HE COMMENTS ON ECONOMIC REFORMS, MILITARY REFORMS, CHECHNYA, RELATIONS WITH THE UNITED STATES AND OTHER COUNTRIES, FOREIGN DEBTS, AND CAPITAL FLIGHT.

<> An interview with Russian President Vladimir Putin

     Question: You became president of the Russian Federation almost a
year ago. What has been achieved since then? What are the successes;
what are the failures?
     Vladimir Putin: We haven't achieved everything we planned. In my
view, however, we've done the most important things. Specifically,
we've made considerable progress toward strengthening Russian
statehood. Remember the state we were living in only recently? One in
four regional laws was unconstitutional or counter to federal
legislation. Two-thirds of regional laws have now been brought into
compliance with the constitution.
     Essentially, we did not have a unified economic and financial
territory. Some regions did not pay taxes to the federal budget, or
paid mere trifles. The Finance Ministry and the Federal Treasury were
barred from some regions. We have amended this situation.
     I think everyone understands now that we are only strong with an
integral state. Another process has begun - the process of
consolidation.
     It is on the basis of strengthening statehood that the progress
toward consolidation has been made. All this has created pre-
conditions for economic achievements. Of course, the foreign trade
situation favored our country, but consolidation of society had its
positive effect too. Economic growth has been impressive - the latest
figures put it at 7.8%. I think that in the long run we will make it
8% of the GDP.
     State debts to citizens have been successfully reduced to a
considerable extent. On the whole, we see some growth in living
standards and real incomes. This is a fact.
     However, there is a problem which is very serious: fighting
bureaucracy in Russia is a very difficult undertaking.
     Question: How do you plan to implement economic reforms while
leaving all existing social benefits intact? I mean, without causing
social unrest? Aren't you afraid of some discord between the
presidential administration and the Cabinet, the two vital bodies -
whose opinions on economic growth in Russia do vary to a certain
extent?
     Putin: By the way, I wouldn't say that economic growth has not
lived up to expectations. We had even expected it to be somewhat less.
However, we haven't seen such high growth for fifteen years.
     As for the discord between individual officials in the
presidential administration and the Cabinet concerning the reforms -
to my mind, what matters here is that everyone in both structures
thinks in similar terms. They have common strategic objectives, common
tasks, and a common understanding. Granted, there are various ideas on
what methods should be used to achieve these objectives.
     Concerning the relationship between maintaining economic growth
and the social situation, this is what I think: economic reforms are
impossible without public support. And getting this support is
impossible unless the state keeps its promises. Everything is
connected here. Any kind of shock therapy, no matter what noble ends
it is supposed to achieve, carries serious risks. As we all know, the
road to hell is paved with good intentions.
     Question: Will our economy be able to withstand the burden of
foreign debts in 2003, when Russia is supposed to pay billions? The
state will have to pay its citizens as well as foreign creditors...
     Putin: Foreign debts are indeed a significant burden. I think the
decision to assume all debts of the former Soviet Union was a serious
error. Why should Russia pay them alone? The whole Soviet Union
borrowed this money, and used it for all republics. Why should Russia
pay for others?
     The decision was ascribed to the so-called Zero Variant, when
Russia inherited all Soviet debts and assets, including property
abroad. I know what kind of property this is.
     Question: You've been working on this problem for a while...
     Putin: Yes. Debts of the Soviet Union and property abroad are not
comparable in value. Some of our partners refused to accept this
decision. They sent notes to all states, and these countries now
refuse to recognize Russia's jurisdiction over the property. We are
talking about Russian property abroad, and other nations are refusing
to gives us proper ownership papers for it.
     Question: All this property is still considered Soviet...
     Putin: Yes, and therefore its ownership is considered debatable.
But we are paying billions in debts on behalf of all former Soviet
states. That is why I don't think much of that decision. Besides, we
should also give some thought to how the money was used.
     In principle, this is a normal phenomenon in a modern economy.
Everyone borrows money. The question is how the money is spent. It is
difficult to expect the money to be used effectively when the major
state institutions are not exactly models of efficiency. Not because
the money is embezzled; but because an inefficient state cannot use
the money effectively. This is what happened in Russia. Ineffective
use of the money. We've consumed it.
     Russia has taken on all these obligations. As a civilized state,
it should honor them. Only one principle is possible here: Russia has
been servicing the debts, and will continue to service them - but
economic development and honoring social obligations to our citizens
are top priorities. If the economy collapses, creditors will never see
their money either. Creditors understand this. We've been able to
reach agreements with them until now. I hope we will be able to reach
agreements with them in future too.
     Yes, payments will reach a peak in 2003. Moreover, the situation
with our economic capacities will also become more or less critical in
that year. All the same, there will be no emergencies. Economic
development forecasts enable us to be fairly optimistic. Yes, we are
in for some difficult years, and 2003 will be one of them. But let me
repeat: there will be no cataclysms.
     Question: What do you think of the problem of capital flight?
According to some reports, up to $30 billion was taken out of Russia
and stashed abroad in 2000. Is a financial amnesty planned?
     Putin: This is an economic problem, not a criminal matter. As for
financial amnesties, I don't object to them in principle. Generally
speaking, this is a fine method of ensuring proper operation of the
market and an inflow of capital and investment. But this is not the
only measure. It's absurd to believe that money will start coming back
as soon as we officially promise an amnesty. What we really need to do
is create proper conditions for investment.
     Strange as it may sound, some controlled liberalization of the
financial market is, to a certain extent, the only means of keeping
capital in the country.
     Question: Has any progress been made in this sphere?
     Putin: I think so. Capital investments has been growing. We've
set income tax at a flat rate of 13%, and tax collection has improved.
We've liberalized customs policy and reduced import duties, and
collection of duties rose. The effect is obvious. Only the first steps
have been taken so far, but the investment climate in Russia is
improving.
     Question: Research is in a state of crisis...
     Putin: If we are to take a worthy place in the world, and just
live worthy lives, we should be aware that this is impossible without
proper support for science and without development of modern
technology. Research funding has increased over the last five years.
This is a fact. There are serious problems with state funding. Only
50% of research funding comes from the state. For the rest,
researchers are forced to rely on other financial sources, all sorts
of grants, and so on. We need a responsible solution to the problem.
To secure this, and to avoid lobbyism, we've set up a presidential
council on research. It is this council that will determine
priorities.
     Question: And what do you think of the brain-drain problem? Is a
reversal possible?
     Putin: We cannot force anyone to stay, can we? We should create
proper conditions first, and then no one will want to emigrate.
Everyone - from ordinary Russians up to the president - needs to
understand that the state should pay appropriate salaries to people
who really deserve it.
     Question: You have said that Russia needs large political parties
with public support. Furthermore, you said future presidents should be
nominated by parties.
     Putin: Perhaps. What I mean is that if we ever have a situation
where there are several influential nationwide parties in Russia, then
it may be expedient to have presidential candidates nominated and
promoted by these parties. For the time being, I think the president
should represent the interests of the whole society. The Duma has
debated the law on political parties already. We need all this work
done. When these parties are truly nationwide, and command true
respect, then we will be able to shift to this practice.
     Question: The system of presidential envoys and seven federal
districts is a key element of government nowadays. The Federation
Council is a structure which will soon become history. Is
reorganization of the whole Federal Assembly planned?
     Putin: The Federation Council is the upper house of parliament,
its functions defined by the law. Until recently, most members of the
Federation Council worked there only part-time, and spent most of
their time managing their respective regions. The Federation Council
will now become professional. I don't doubt that its quality as a
legislature will go up.
     We have a different task with regional leaders at present. It is
time we split the powers between the federal government and the
regions. This means that the Federation Council is not going to lose
any influence or importance.
     As for the regional leaders as such, the State Council was formed
in order to make them closer to, and better acquainted with, federal
government matters. It has justified itself as a strategic planning
body. It helps me greatly. It's a kind of "purgatory" for the Cabinet,
and a "sieve" for serious decisions that have an impact on the nation.
     Question: And now, about Chechnya. A year has passed. How do you
assess the prospects of this particular problem?
     Putin: How long did it take us to root out the "forest brothers"
after World War II?
     Question: A decade, more or less.
     Putin: And remember, it took us so long in the conditions of a
totalitarian regime and when all borders were locked. Moreover, all
this was taking place on the flatlands then. The situation we are
facing in Chechnya is much more complicated.
     What has been done? There are no more large gangs. The remaining
splinter groups can no longer offer properly organized resistance. We
control all of Chechnya. This is a fact too. As I see it, any large-
scale invasion of the nearby territories from Chechnya is now highly
unlikely. All these are necessary but not sufficient conditions for a
conclusive settlement. We understand that such a settlement can only
be political, and that only the people of Chechnya themselves can come
up with one.
     You all know what Russia's major task is. We don't want the
territory of Chechnya used as a bridgehead to destabilize the Russian
Federation and raid adjacent territories. And this is precisely what
we got when we pulled out from Chechnya last time. We all know the
forces that immediately surfaced to fill the vacuum - all kinds of
ethnic and religious radicalism.
     We've been witnessing exactly the same thing in Kosovo. The
events on the border between Kosovo and Macedonia are dramatic. Heavy
military hardware is being used there already, and I remember how
sharply we were criticized once for the use of similar equipment in
Chechnya.
     Can a conclusive settlement to the Chechnya problem be found?
Sure. What does it imply? At present, it implies strengthening the
local government bodies, improving their effectiveness, restoring
social services, health care, and the economy above all. These days,
explosive devices are used against the federal troops by everyone from
kids to old men. Do you think they do it for ideological reasons? No.
They are paid $10-50 for each "surprise". They have nothing to eat,
nowhere to work. Unemployment in Chechnya is total.
     Question: Will we proceed with the pullout?
     Putin: Yes, of course. Keeping surplus forces in Chechnya is
pointless. An army should either fight wars or participate in
maneuvers. In Chechnya, the army no longer has a strong enough enemy
to fight, and cannot organize maneuvers or exercises. Why keep it
there? It's useless, and harmless. We will leave as many troops there
as needed, and no more.
     Question: A few words about the military reforms, please.
     Putin: Military reforms are one of the most important areas of
our work. This work is coordinated by the Security Council and its
secretary, Sergei Ivanov.
     The reforms are expected to take a decade. The army should be
optimized, the whole security organization of the state should be
optimized. Duplicated, and therefore ineffective, structures should be
abolished.
     Question: When will we have a professional army?
     Putin: A professional army is a goal we all should strive for. To
a considerable extent, our Armed Forces are already professional - the
Navy, Air Force, missile troops, and some other branches of the
military are 80-90% non-conscripts. Can we cut down conscription
already? I don't know. I don't think we should hurry. We'd better
reduce it gradually.
     Question: But we cannot give a precise date yet, right? I mean,
the way Boris Yeltsin once did when he promised to form a professional
army by 2005.
     Putin: No, I don't think we should be tied to exact dates. I
repeat, all reforms will take a decade. I don't rule out the
possibility that we will have conscription reduced to a minimum by
2010.
     Question: You have visited Cuba, Vietnam, North Korea, and
Mongolia. How promising are these countries as partners?
     Putin: Don't automatically assume that we are restoring the
relations we used to maintain with these countries. We are not. Our
foreign contacts used to be based on ideology, and little if anything
else. We pumped huge resources into some countries without knowing
when we could expect anything in return, or sometimes even without
knowing why we were doing it at all. However, not everything was so
thoughtless; so why should we lose the huge potential built up over
decades?
     I saw in Vietnam how we were greeted by ordinary citizens. You
cannot stage things like that, believe me. So why should we lose this
vast resource of friendship? To say nothing of the joint venture we
have there, extracting oil on the shelf off Vietnam. This company
alone paid $500 million into the federal budget in 2000. On the eve of
my visit, the government of Vietnam resolved to allow this company to
work on another part of the shelf.
     Or take Cuba. We spent billions on facilities there, and
construction was suspended. We spent $30 million on conservation of a
nuclear power plant, not entirely completed there, last year. What are
we supposed to do? Spend $30 million a year on it from now on? We'd
better decide what we are to do with all of the facilities.
     Take North Korea. Firstly, this is our neighbor, and we need
stability on the peninsula. Russian border regions need it; and not
only border regions. We reached an agreement with South Korea, and
with North Korea in principle too, to connect the Trans-Korean and
Trans-Siberian railroads. This connection will greatly improve the
finances of the Railroads Ministry and the Russian regions through
which the Trans-Siberian Railroad runs. It will facilitate overall
economic development. We should forget ideologies, and take only
practical considerations into account.
     Question: A few words about the Russian-American relations. How
well-founded are the fears that now that George W. Bush is in the
White House, we could find ourselves back in a state of cool relations
- if not a Cold War? Our relations are deteriorating - spy scandals,
statements from the State Department about human rights abuses, NATO
eastward expansion, plans to deploy a national missile defense...
     Putin: Russia's foreign policy will not include any great power
chauvinism. We aim to develop equal relations with all states. Of
course, the United States is one of our major partners.
     As for the policy of the new US administration with regard to
Russia and Russian-American relations in general, I think we should
cut out the theatrics. New administrations always revise the policies
of their predecessors. This is true of all countries, and the United
States is no exception.
     We do differ on some aspects of international relations, first
and foremost in the sphere of security. Specifically, it concerns our
appraisal of the ABM Treaty of 1972. We have always thought, and will
go on thinking, that the ABM Treaty itself and its basic elements are
the foundation of global security. We will insist on it; but we expect
our dialogue with the American partners to be constructive.
     The US president said recently that Russia was neither an enemy
nor a friend of the United States. I take this as a positive signal.
We've heard it, and we treat the United States in a similar manner. We
hope for a positive dialogue.
     Question: How would you assess prospects of the CIS, and
specifically prospects of Ukraine, where such complicated processes
are taking place?
     Putin: The CIS is at the top of the list of our foreign policy
priorities, precisely because there are 25 million people there who
consider Russia their second Motherland and Russian their native
tongue. CIS countries are our major trade and economic partners. We
intend to facilitate relations with these countries on the basis of
equality. We don't want dominance or anything like that. Economically,
it would not benefit us at all.
     There is the problem of ethnic Russians in these countries. Let's
face it: all those who could do so, have moved to Russia already. The
ones who could not are still there. Of course, we are not going to
treat these people as strangers.
     Apart from CIS countries, however, there are also the Baltic
states. It is common knowledge that the problem of ethnic Russians is
very acute in some of them. The term "non-citizens" was even coined
for these people. There are 600,000 such "non-citizens" in Latvia
alone. This greatly disturbs us. I repeat, we are going to insist on
observance of their legitimate rights and interests. On the other
hand, it will not help ethnic Russians in these countries if we chose
the path of confrontation. Such problems should be solved through
dialogue...

*******

#3
From: Matt Taibbi <exile.taibbi@matrix.ru>
Subject: march madness
Date: Wed, 21 Mar 2001

VOTE OR LOSE!
MARCH MADNESS CONTINUES
Press Review
By Matt Taibbi
The eXile

Both games were thrillers- instant hoop classics. No one has ever seen or
will ever see a Final Four like it. Four journalists at their very worst.
Two epic battles. Ten straight overtimes. Ten overtimes and counting, that
is. As in- they're still playing.

The remaining contestants in the eXile's 2nd annual Worst Journalist
Tourney are competing so fiercely that judging them on our own is no longer
an option for us. The Final Four matchups were so close that we've been
forced to turn the reins of the contest over to U, the reader.
We often ask our readers to judge for themselves. Now we're asking you to
judge for us. The four hacks remaining in our March Madness tourney have
been awful enough in the past two weeks- awful enough, in fact, that we
can't bring ourselves to yank any of them from the tournament. So we've
decided to pussy out. The Final Four results will be determined you, the
reader, in a poll taken on our internet site.

Have you suffered through one too many Michael Wines articles? Log on to
www.exile.ru and vote for the New York Times bureau goblin. Does reading
Newsweek make you reach involuntarily for the knife drawer? Log on and put
Christian Caryl's flabby magazine-writer neck on the chopping block. Think
being born British isn't punishment enough? Vote for Rob Cottrell of the
Financial Times and make him play another round.

Here's how this is going to work. All four hacks are going to be listed in
the poll. You vote for the hack you want most to see in the Final. We'll
look at the results and put the top vote-getter in each bracket in the
Final, which is slated to be held in the e-Start arena two weeks from
today.

Vote freely and without hesitation. Your conscience should not in the
slightest be affected by thoughts of the ghastly surprise which awaits the
winner and which, to repeat the eXile's "Service First" guarantee, we have
been fiendishly planning for over two feverish months now. Don't think
about that at all. Whatever happens will not be your fault. It would have
happened to someone anyway.

Who should you vote for? How did the contestants perform in this round?
Ready your mouse and prepare to click; here's how your candidates fared:

Michael Wines (1), New York Times, vs. Peter Baker, Washington Post (ppd.,
late)

Jack Tobin, the Fullbright scholar who was busted by the FSB for potsmoking
in Voronezh last month and subsequently accused of being a spy-in-training,
seems like a stand-up guy to us. at least, that's what we thought when we
met him last fall. Tobin came all the way up to Moscow from Voronezh to
attend our shitty 100th issue party at Lexx. He won a t-shirt by naming the
first seven prime numbers. He needed a haircut. We observed no listening
devices on his person.

Therefore we were personally offended on behalf of a faithful reader when
it came to our attention that Wines had screwed Tobin in print a few weeks
ago. In his Feb. 28 piece entitled, "Russian drug arrest turns into spy
case," Wines wrote that Tobin had been caught in possession of a half-ounce
of pot, and that an additional one and a half ounces were found in his
apartment.

The amounts listed by Wines are more than fifteen times the size of the
amounts Tobin was actually accused of possessing. In official statements
and in most published reports, both in the English and in the Russian
press, Tobin was reported to have possessed from 3 to 4.5 grams, not
ounces, of pot. Ounces are not a standard measurement in Russia. Wines,
whose preferred vice is said to be R-rated DVDs, probably wouldn't be aware
of these nuances.

Wines wrote a few other articles in the past few weeks. Among them was the
March 13 piece, "Putin to Sell Arms and Nuclear Help to Iran." This is a
difficult subject to screw up, as even those of us inclined to hate the New
York Times will be likely to agree that a military alliance between
Vladimir Putin and Iran is probably not a good thing for humanity. The
problem is the way Wines approaches the piece. Even with an ex-KGB dictator
and a bunch of bomb-tossing towelheads as protagonists, he has to weight
things heavily in favor of the American point of view. It starts in the
lead:
'MOSCOW, March 12- Breaking openly with both the United States and his
predecessor Boris N. Yeltsin, President Vladimir V. Putin formally agreed
today to resume sales of conventional arms to Iran after a hiatus of more
than five years.'

Wines informs the reader right away that the most important aspect of this
story is the fact that Russia is not only defying the United States, but
doing so "openly". The American reaction is also spliced into the second
piece of information in the story, in the second paragraph:
'At a meeting in the Kremlin with President Muhammad Khatami of Iran, Mr.
Putin also reiterated Russia's intention to help Iran complete a
long-stalled nuclear power plant that some American experts contend could
advance Iran's nuclear weapons program.'

Wines cites American "experts" twice. He appears to be referring to the
State Department and the CIA, the only two American sources cited
specifically. In a later passage in the piece, Wines has his experts
dismiss any and all innocent explanations of the nuclear-facility story:
'The United States has argued that Iran has little need for new nuclear
generating capacity and that the reactor could be used to aid what it says
is Iran's clandestine nuclear- weapons program.'

To you and me, it might seem odd that the United States should think itself
in a position to determine who does and does not need a nuclear power
plant. It doesn't seem strange to Wines, who appears to find this perfectly
natural. There is furthermore the phrase, "...what it says is Iran's
clandestine nuclear-weapons program." Not what is a clandestine
nuclear-weapons program, but what is Iran's clandestine nuclear-weapons
program. The language strongly suggests that the program's existence is a
matter of established fact, when it is not.

Here is another example of Times airbrushing, a passage explaining the
history of Russian arms sales to Iran:
'Russia sold some $5 billion in weapons to Iran from 1989 to 1995, in no
small part for defense against President Saddam Hussein of Iraq and his
army, which waged war against Iran for much of the 1980's.'

Wines here neglects to mention that the United States was the primary
supplier to weapons to Saddam Hussein during that same period in the 1980s.
It also fails to mention that the United States was secretly trading in
weapons with Iran during the same time. The Wines version manages to vilify
both Hussein and the Russians at the same time, while conveniently ignoring
our own role in the arming of both sides of that conflict.
Then there is this passage:
'Washington has quietly sought to improve relations with Iran but to little
avail. Officially, Iran remains on a list of rogue nations that American
experts believe could threaten the Middle East with nuclear or chemical
weapons and ballistic missiles within a few years.'

You have to look at the whole historical context of the Iran story in order
to understand what an extraordinary passage this is. Wines is not factually
in error when he states that Iran is on America's list of rogue states. The
problem is with the very concept of our list of "rogue nations... that
could threaten the Middle East." The very idea is insane to anyone outside
the United States.

Here you have the United States on the one hand which in 1953 engineered
the overthrow of a sovereign Irani government, installing in its place the
Shah Reza Pahlevi. For the next 25 years after that, the U.S.-backed
Iranian government was one of the most brutal in the world, routinely
listed by groups like Amnesty International as one of the world's worst
torturers and oppressors. During that same period, United States business
interests milked the country for cheap oil while most of the population
languished in poverty.

Then, after the U.S.-backed government was finally ousted in 1979, the
United States turned right around and sent hundreds of millions of dollars
worth of arms to Iran's neighboring military enemy, Iraq, which attempted
to conquer their country by force.

In the meantime, the United States coerced most of the world into following
economic sanctions against Iran as a punishment for its "terrorist"
activities, resulting in further poverty and misery for the population.
And at the end of all of this, the United States turns around and declares
that Iran, not the United States, is the real threat to the Middle East!
Can you imagine what this sounds like to an Iranian? I'm surprised they
don't hijack a plane a day!

Against all this background, Wines writes that 'Washington has quietly
sought to improve relations with Iran but to little avail.' As though we're
the good guys, and the Iranians are the unreasonable ones, spurning the
olive branch offered by enlightened European civilization. He enhances the
impression of Iran as the unreasonable opponent of benevolent Western
foreign policy aims when he writes, about Iran's interest in the Russian
weapons deal:
'For its part, Iran finds an ally who shares many of its predilections,
among them opposition to Turkey and expansion of NATO, and a desire to
limit American influence in central Asia, where American- and
Russian-backed oil pipelines are fiercely competing to control the flow of
new finds in the Caspian Sea.'

The loaded word here is "predilections." In the context of the politics of
a formerly colonized people this is a very strange word to employ.
'Predilection' is a word that implies a habitual, and not necessarily
rational, preference: it is the cousin of such words as presupposition,
prejudice, and bias. You would never hear the Times describing South
Africans as having a "predilection" to opposing white rule, or even the
United States as having a "predilection" to opposing communism. Yet Iran is
credited with a mere "predilection" with regard to its opposition to the
expansion of NATO, the military alliance of its former imperial oppressors,
as though it is only maintaining its stance out of habit and religious
superstition.

Wines's flippant treatment of Iran is in keeping with a long tradition at
the Times. With regard to this story I would like to quote from a Times
editorial published in 1953, after the U.S.-backed coup. The paper wrote
then that the overthrow of the Mossadegh government "will be an object
lesson to governments that go berserk with hysterical nationalism."
That's really what the paper wrote: that governments that get out of line
should be taught a "lesson" by the United States. The sanctions and
hysteria about rogue nations put forward by the U.S. today are just an
extension of that old belief in our right to give "lessons" to whomever we
want. Our press gives credence to this attitude by buying into the fear of
rogue states on the one hand, while ignoring the mitigating factors of
history on the other.

This is the context of Wines's latest article. It's garden-variety American
press bullshit, but bullshit nonetheless.

Then there's Peter Baker, David Hoffman's replacement at the Washington
Post, who's beginning to look like he can really play in this league. He's
been a real bizzy little beever, this guy. In two weeks, he's filed two
"creaky Mir Space Station" stories and one "misguided Russian patriotism"
story, in addition to co-authoring an account of the Fuhrer's internet chat
that ran under the excellent headline, "Putin Vows to Preserve Democracy."
Half that output in the course of a month is normally enough to win a hack
scout badge in this town. But Baker did twice the reps in half the time.
You've gotta like the rookie's enthusiasm.

Probably my favorite piece of the lot was the Feb. 12 "Russians Feel a
Patriotic Push." It's hard not to warm up to a reporter who can write like
this:
'In Russia, patriotism has been a powerful force dating back to the early
czars. It helped rally a nation to victory over Nazi Germany in what is
still called the Great Patriotic War. But it has also been used to justify
monstrous evils in the form of pogroms and Stalinism.'

Baker blows his cover here, reporting directly to his alien commanders
instead of via the usual coded message sent through the Post's readers. He
sounds here like Mork from Ork in the end-of-the-show monologue:
"Orson, earthlings sometimes indulge in an emotion called 'patriotism'.
Under its influence, the patriotic earthling will begin to love his country
so much that he will want to kill earthlings from other countries."

"That's very strange, Mork," booms the offscreen voice of Orson. "Why
should love make people want to kill?"

"Unclear, Orson," says Baker. "That is just the way of these earthlings.
Fascinating creatures, capable of love and hate at the same time..."
Mork from Ork returns later in the piece when Baker flashes the "Nano,
nano" sign at a group of Russian college students and quizzes them about
the earthling "patriotism" emotion:
'To some cosmopolitan students at Moscow State University,' he writes, 'the
notion of state-sponsored patriotism training is bewildering. They barely
know what their parents went through and stare blankly when it is described
to them.'

It doesn't seem possible, but it sure appears that Baker is claiming here
that he was the one who explained to these students "what their parents
went through." It seems too comical to be true: an American journalist
shows up on a Russian college campus and takes it upon himself to be the
first one to expose the students' virgin minds to the horrors of their
country's communist past. Amazed by his knowledge, they stare blankly at
him in reply, mesmerized by the shocking truth. If you're not laughing yet,
don't bother reading on, because there's nothing funnier coming.

To be fair, this is probably not what Baker meant when he wrote that
passage. Most likely, he meant that the students he interviewed had no
reaction when he brought up the purges. He just wrote it badly,  making it
sound as though he had revealed to them a previously-unknown truth.

Still, even taking Baker not for his literal meaning but for his intended
meaning, he comes across as a lunatic. One can imagine the Russian version
of the same report: "American students, unconcerned by the legacy of the
Japanese internment camps, shrugged of this reporter's questions and went
on to their Eminem concert..."

Baker's Mir stuff was your basic meat-and-potatoes exercise in jingoist
gloating. The Mir was always the Western press's favorite story here, and
for good reason: it allowed reporters to describe at length the physical
process of Russia's collapse, while we Americans haven't had a space thing
blow up in years.

No Western reporter who ever covered Mir ever failed to explicitly draw out
the metaphor for Russia's societal disintegration, and Baker was not about
to be the first exception:
'The station has also become - particularly in its final days - a metaphor
for Russia, the all-too-visible symbol of a pioneering space program
humbled by the fall of the superpower that sponsored it. The blow to
Russian pride has led to numerous protests in recent weeks, as well as a
resolution by the lower house of parliament, the State Duma, begging the
government to somehow save Mir, all to no avail.'

Returning to the theme of his "Misguided Patriotism" piece of a week
before, Baker then goes on to demonstrate that, as far as Mir is concerned,
there was never anything to be proud about in the first place. In the
process, he uses the "Mir-as-broken-automobile" analogy, which has also
been used by virtually every reporter in town at least a dozen times by
now:
'To others, though, the finale is overdue. U.S. officials have long urged
Russia to discard Mir, which in its waning years often resembled a favorite
old car that spent more time in the shop than on the road. NASA would
prefer that Russia concentrate its meager resources on the international
station.
'"Mir is clearly seen by the Russians as the last remaining symbol of space
glory," said James Oberg, a former U.S. flight control engineer and author
of several books on the Russian space program. "But it's a delusional
nostalgia. For all the robustness of Mir, the Soviets never figured out
what to do with it outside of feel-good propaganda."'

Well, hell, what did we do with the moon-put ski resorts on it? Feel-good
propaganda is a lot of what space is about. And I'm sure there are plenty
of scientists who will be happy to describe at length all the science that
came out of Mir. It gave mankind its first long-term exposure to space
travel, for one thing. The idea that Russians shouldn't be nostalgic about
Mir is ridiculous. You can bet that if the Mir was, say, British, we'd
never the end of what a great thing it was. As it stands, they couldn't
even make a believable-looking model of a space station for Moonraker, let
alone build a real one that actually functioned in space.

Then there's this next bit, a classic piece of Washington Post  reporting:
'Japan and a number of South Pacific islands have expressed concern that a
repeat of that experience could mean disaster. U.S. military and civilian
space experts dismiss these worries as unwarranted, noting that large
objects, from meteorites to spent rocket stages, regularly plow into
Earth's atmosphere unnoticed.'

Translation: "Some smaller countries had some concerns about being battered
by space junk, but the United States said these concerns were the
superstitious ravings of lesser peoples."

Baker goes on to call Russia's economy "decrepit" and gleefully point out
that "once-proud Russia" is now taking "a subservient role to NASA." He
quotes a Russian analyst who uses the Mir story to introduce the theme of
collapsing Russian industry and deflated morale in the military. He then
wraps up his article by painstakingly pointing out how and when Mir is
going to fall apart, describing how the station's "insect-like" wings will
burn up in the atmosphere and how the body will be chewed up into
25-kilogram chunks before crashing into the earth.

In short, he has as much fun with the story as the Soviets probably did
when Skylab fell out of the sky during the ugly "malaise" years of the
Carter administration, when it would have been easy to argue that America
was falling apart along with its spaceships. Skyrocketing gas prices,
inflation, the Ayatollah, disco... it all must have made a lot of sense to
the editors of Pravda.

This matchup, like the other Final Four matchup, turned out to be too close
for the eXile judges to call. One had Wines winning on his card, another
had Baker, and a third-me-had it an even draw. I had Wines winning the
first, second, third, fifth, eighth, and twelfth through fifteenth rounds,
but scored two points against him for low blows. The knockdown on Baker's
"barely knew what their parents went through" passage I ruled a slip.
It will therefore be left to U, the eXile reader, to break the tie and
determine the outcome of this matchup by voting for your choice. Again, log
on to the eXile website at www.exile.ru and cast your vote in the poll
section. It's okay, we took down the Anna Kournikova thing. Winners will be
announced one week from today. Vote now, time is running out...


Christian Caryl (3), Newsweek, vs Rob Cottrell (2), Financial Times (ppd.,
late)

Christian Caryl did not file in the last two weeks. I was prepared to give
him, and Newsweek, an automatic pass out of the tournament on these
grounds-until I saw the MacPhersons.

"Around the World With the MacPhersons" is a long-running Newsweek.com web
feature which is now in its mind-boggling 32nd week. As you may guess from
the clever title, it chronicles the adventures of a "typical American
family" as it spends a year traveling the world.

The MacPhersons make lots of friends and meet lots of nice people. They see
majestic animals and eat lots of interesting exotic food, although they do
confess from time to time to missing the food back home. Their trip is not
without its hazards: at one stage of their journey, in Africa, Daddy
MacPherson's laptop is stolen, and this casts a pall over the trip for a
good three and a half columns. In South America, the family looks up at the
sky and considers the hole in the ozone layer, which turns out to be a
secondary problem to the issue of little Molly MacPherson's teeth falling
out. Here's how Mommy MacPherson described that incident:
'Perhaps the ozone hole had a mysterious influence upon Molly, who lost two
baby teeth in two consecutive days. In a note under her pillow, she let us
know that this time the jig on the Tooth Fairy was up. "Dear Mommy or
Daddy," she wrote. "For this molar that I have suffered over, I want U.S.
dollars, not pesos. American dollars! Five bucks at the most. I will be
heartily disappointed if I get three dollars. But four is OK. Love you!
Molly."'

Cute kid, huh? Sure she is. Just look at that picture. A darling little
girl.

I literally shrieked out loud when I first saw the MacPherson family
portrait. It took about a tenth of a second for my mind to put together the
story behind the story, specifically to imagine the editor who pitched this
concept to the Newsweek braintrust. I could see him looking at the
MacPherson family pictures and clenching his fists in excitement, knowing
that he had a winner on his hands, and then running with it straight to
Corporate.

No doubt about it, this is the perfect Newsweek concept: beautiful,
well-off American family travels the world, posing for big, toothy,
portraits in front of all the great and mysterious monuments of foreign
civilization. The sands of the Gobi: big teeth, big smiles. The South
African outback: lost laptop and frowns. The Kashmiri wilderness: a comfy
train ride, big smiles again. Boffo opportunites for product placement:
fanny packs and Palm Pilots in every direction, always connected to a
tooth-bearing MacPherson (Dad and son in Africa: 'We have sped past a White
Rhino whose proximity was such that we could have checked him for
hemorrhoids-"A Kodak moment!" yelled Charlie, half-seriously'), cars,
airlines, hotels... It's ingenious, I don't dispute that, but that doesn't
mean the person who thought this up shouldn't have his brains dashed out
with a hammer.

These are the people the news desk of Newsweek is making the world safe
for. The magazine is apparently intent on giving us 52 consecutive weeks of
MacPhersons travelling the corners of the earth to show us how great we
have things at home. They remind me of Russians who say that the
restaurants in Paris are nice, but they still prefer a good bowl of Russian
pelmeni. Only Russians don't have those teeth. Or those tans. Here's
another MacPherson passage, the family bored on a safari:
'Molly didn't even glance up from her book. Clearly, the goings-on in the
imaginary world of Mordor were more exciting than the reality of Addo. That
day, the final score was Tolkien 7, Africa 1: the baby warthogs were just
too cute for Molly to pass by.'

Try this passage-a "Christmas poem" by Daddy MacPherson, about the lost
laptop. Note the relentless product placement and the atrocious scanning:
'Grinched in Cape Town
A poem by Malcolm MacPherson
T'was the night before Christmas
And all through our house
Only one creature was stirring.
And it wasn't a mouse.
He came in through a window
With a mask on his eyes.
He had robbery in his heart.
Our Sony computer was his prize.
He was gone in a blink,
While we were still at midnight church.
Oh, what a horrid thing to do,
Leaving us like that in the lurch.
The Lord giveth and He taketh away,
We know.
But with no Vaio laptop to use,
We've still been dealt a low blow.
We loved our Sony
That we stored our photos on.
So, please, bear with us
Until from Cape Town we are gone!'

Somebody has to pay for this MacPherson business. Ideally, someone should
die. I know one thing for sure: Christian Caryl is not getting out of this
tournament yet. He has not filed for two weeks, but this foisting upon us
of the Newsweek view of the world is a collective effort, and he is
definitely part of the problem.

Take his last piece, the March 5, "What the Russians Really Want." This is
a classic piece of MacPhersonism. You see, it turns out that the Russians
have been stealing our laptops, too:
'In Putin-style espionage, ideology is out, and so are most acts of
subversion aimed at the United States. What Russia needs now is
information: military, technological and economic. Putin wants quick growth
for Russia's defense industry, sensing lucrative markets overseas. But he
has written that it would take as many as 15 years for Russia to catch up
with even the poorest countries in the West.

'"Scientific institutes won't be able to do it; it costs a lot of money,"
says Jolanta Darczewska, a Polish expert on Russia's intelligence
establishment. "It's better to steal-cheaper and faster."'

There we were, minding our own business, reading our Tolkein and playing
with our Sonys, and those Russians had to go and steal our technology
because they're too poor and too lazy to invent their own. There is no
mention here of the fact that our own spy population in Russia has almost
certainly doubled and tripled over the last ten years for the same reasons,
and that our biggest multinationals-like Pratt and Whitney to Boeing-have
been actively buying up seats on the boards of Russian defense contractors,
in essence buying access to Russian technology.

But the MacPhersons will believe the Caryl version. They've lived it.
Foreigners can be nice, but they'll steal your stuff if you're not careful.
They'll believe it the same way they'll believe their '86 Chevy would be a
pussy magnet on Tverskaya ultisa.

I was also amused by Newsweek's reaction to angry reader response to its
Growing Islam Menace piece, which had a partial Caryl byline. This was the
the one which asked readers to think of Osama Bin Laden as the CEO of
"Jihad.com".

The magazine was apparently deluged with letters from outraged Muslims
around the world, who sensibly argued that equating Islam with the actions
of a few terrorists was equivalent to condemning all Christians for the
actions of the KKK.

The response must have been tremendous, for Newsweek took the rare step of
running not even a retraction, but an entire article which essentially
apologized for demonizing the world's Muslim population. Writer Zachary
Karabell, who was the lead correspondent on the first Islam piece, answered
readers' concerns by travelling to Egypt and reporting that there were many
nice Muslims there.

He also wrote, in essence, that the devotion to Islam was understandable in
this part of the world, as the population devastated by economic problems
clearly needs a "balm and a salve'. You'd never catch Newsweek calling
Christianity a 'balm and a salve' for anything. Most Christians believe in
the Bible because they think it's the revealed Word of God, not because
it's an effective escape. They're wrong, of course, but it is not currently
acceptable in the American mainstream media to say otherwise.

You can, however, say what you like about the false and profane beliefs of
other faiths, like Islam. Furthermore, Newsweek ignored the pleas by a
number of letter writers to address the question of why so many Muslims
think of America as the great Satan, or why there is anti-American
terrorism at all in the first place. Instead, they ran yet another piece on
the Bin Laden menace, this time providing further "evidence" linking him to
the bombing of the USS Cole. Do these guys suck, or what?

Meanwhile, Rob (No Vida Loca) Cottrell of the Financial Times keeps
plodding on. This guy is slippery, tough to get a grip on. As a basketball
player, he reminds me a little of onetime Denver Nugget Alex English, who
until the arrival of Michael Jordan was the perennial scoring leader in the
NBA. English kind of loped around the court, never running that fast,
practically never jumping at all. You got the sense that your mother could
cover him. But you'd look at the box score the next morning, and he had 29
points every time. His money shot was a sixteen-foot drifting fall-away
jumper. I can't say I remember seeing English score even once, but I
remember seeing those box scores a lot.

Cottrell's latest big intellectual effort was his March 13 "Comment and
Analysis" piece, entitled 'Putin's Daunting Agenda.' This exact piece has
been written at least four thousand times in the past sixteen years, since
the beginning of Perestroika. In it, the Western reporter takes the Russian
politician the West has placed its hopes on (Gorbachev, Yeltsin, Gaidar,
Chubais, Chernomyrdin, Kiriyenko, Putin, Gref) and writes about the
"daunting prospects" he faces in his attempts to put through "necessary"
reforms. The reforms the Western reporter deems "necessary" are always the
same: cut corporate taxes, relax import restrictions, reduce "public
spending" (a euphemism for reducing social spending), end subsidies of all
kinds, free up land ownership, and make the state "rolls" more "efficient",
i.e. fire unnecessary state workers.

Cottrell's article is no different, but there are some passages in it which
go far beyond even the hard-line neo-liberal rhetoric seen in most of these
reports:
"Housing and communal reform is still on the drawing board. Most Russians
still pay very little for their housing and utilities. A reform would
oblige all households to pay market prices for rent and utilities, with
subsidies targeted at the poor."

This is an incredibly disingenuous piece of writing. As Cottrell surely
knows, there is an energy crisis in Russia right now which is causing
entire communities, particularly those in the far east, to literally freeze
to death. His proposal is to solve the problem by making Russians pay "full
market prices" for their energy.

Then he adds the caveat: "With subsidies targeted at the poor." Which
"poor" does he mean? I would estimate that about 95% of Russians cannot
afford to pay market prices for heat. A similarly large number would not be
able to pay market prices for rent.

Rent is a strange concept anyway in this country. The kvartplata I'm
assuming he's talking about is more like the building fee Westerners pay
when they own a condominium. Housing has already been  privatized in this
country, meaning that the only subsidies involved are reduced rates for
general upkeep of the common areas, and the buildings, which the state
still owns. The apartments are owned by the residents themselves.

At the same time, Cottrell applauds measures on the table to reduce
corporate profit taxes. He also proposes an end to all agricultural
subsidies and the freeing up of agricultural land for sale, a reform which
he concedes will meet powerful opposition by the people who actually live
in these areas:
'The farm sector will be a powerful lobby against such reform, meaning
 that Russia's collective farms will probably cling on to existence,
hopelessly inefficient as they are.'

You can substitute the phrase "the people who live on collective farms" for
"collective farms", and you'll get a better sense of what Cottrell is
talking about here. Collective farm workers oppose private ownership of
agricultural land because they know exactly what it will mean: virtual
serfdom at the hands of whatever Abramovich or Potanin becomes Russia's
land baron under the system. It sure as hell isn't going to be the workers
themselves who'll be buying that land. You can ask workers at places like
Norilsk Nickel why they wish their company had not been taken over by a
mobster from the state. That's if they're well enough to answer.

We at the eXile may be strong people, but we are not strong enough to
decide on our own to bounce either of these reporters from the tournament.
For that, we'll need your help. Neo-liberal mouthpiece Cottrell, or
Macpherson advance guard Caryl? We can live with either decision.

Do your duty. Pull the cyber-lever at www.exile.ru. Finalists announced in
one week's time. The tournament's winner- in two.
Next issue: The Worst Journalist in Moscow!

*******

CDI Russia Weekly:  http://www.cdi.org/russia

Johnson's Russia List Archive (under construction):  http://www.cdi.org/russia/johnson