Alexander Cockburn at Counterpunch makes the case that this sexy Russian spy story is much to do about nothing.

There’s been ripe chortling about the spy network run in the U.S.A. by the Russian SVR – successor to the KGB in the area of foreign intelligence. The eleven accused were supposedly a bunch of bumblers so deficient in remitting secrets to Moscow across nearly a decade that the FBI can’t even muster the evidence to charge them with espionage. The ten who have been arrested are accused of conspiracy to act as agents of a foreign government without notifying the U.S. attorney general, which is what lobbyists here do if they are working for, say, Georgia or China. Their filings are available for public review at the Commerce Department. If the Russians are convicted, they could be sentenced up to five years in prison.

All of the defendants who appeared in the New York court except one, the fetching Anna Chapman, are also charged with conspiracy to commit money laundering, which carries a maximum penalty of 20 years of prison.

Assuming their lawyers don’t get them off, a doubtful proposition, we can assume the Russians will round up 11 Americans, accuse them of spying and then do a trade. Then both sides will start again, the Russians training fresh sets of agents to spout American baseball records, burn hamburgers over the backyard grill, jog and do other all-American things like have negative equity on their houses and owe the IRS money, and the Americans forcing their agents to read Dostoevsky.

 He goes into the possible motivations of the FBI.

The Russians say darkly that it was an effort by neoconservative forces to mar the pleasant encounter between presidents Medvedev and Obama. Maybe. But as a right-wing conspiracy to bring back the Cold War it was pretty pathetic. The Obama administration made haste to discount any serious diplomatic backwash from the arrests. Maybe the Russians were about to roll up the ring and the FBI wanted to grab a few headlines and justify their next budget request. Maybe it was part of some internecine feud between U.S. intelligence agencies. If there is – as seems likely – a back story, it will be years, if ever, before it comes out.

The FBI is probably thrilled to come up with some spies who aren’t Israelis or Americans working for the Israelis who are routinely spared the inconvenience of any trial by the intervention of Israeli-backed U.S. politicians and speedily released.

I have a hard time believing that the FBI is crawling with neo-conservative ideologues hell-bent on confronting Russia, though I could be wrong.  More likely they want to make sure that they continue giving Congress reasons to fund them.

A fundamental difference between us and the mainstream right is the latter divides government into categories of good and bad.  The parasitic state employees-social workers, run of the mill paper pushers, etc.- and their departments are subject to all the evil effects of bureaucratization while the more masculine government workers-law enforcement, firemen, soldiers-are selfless public servants who always need “support.”  In reality, like with anyone else who lives off the taxpayer, if there’s no real reason to justify an intelligence agency or large army it becomes in the interests of those working in these fields to “make work.”  The problem is even worse than it is in the rest of government because make-work military and law enforcement employees, unlike superfluous teacher's aides for example, need to kill people or throw them in jail in order to remain necessary.  

Those who see the state as something that either should be minimized or cease to exist all together need to be just as suspicious of government workers who carry guns as they are of those who don't, if not more so.  

With the surge in piracy off the Horn of Africa over the past decade, some old maritime conventions have gained new relevance. The navies of NATO, Russia, China, India and other nations have been patrolling the region in response to the upswing in attacks from seaborne Somali raiders. While the pirates have been killed in the course of combat missions, naval forces have been confronted with another problem: how should they be processed if captured? They are occasionally tried in the courts of rescuing countries, but generally modern international law fails to give a satisfactory answer.

In tackling the pirates, the governments of EU-NATO countries show themselves enforcers of the human rights regime rather than guardians of their peoples’ safety and interests. As in so many other instances, the UK leads the way into the Brave New World. Britain’s Royal Navy avoids taking pirates into custody, because to do so will trigger asylum claims, which the UK government is bound to honor under its own laws. Her Majesty’s ships have also been providing pirate gangs food and water. If Somali bandits can’t enjoy the largesse of the welfare state in Britain itself, at least they can re-stock in between hijackings with some generous humanitarian aid.

But the pirate’s life isn’t just rum and wenches (or in the Somali case, khat, hashish and child brides). The Russians seem to have responded to the raids in a radically different manner. Last month, the tanker Moscow University was seized by a group of hijackers. The crew was quick and resourceful enough to shut down the engines and gather in a compartment of the ship locked off from the pirates. The men then established radio contact with multinational coalition forces and the Russian destroyer Marshal Shaposhnikov. A day later, Russian marine commandos fast-roping from helicopters retook the ship in a well-planned and executed assault. One pirate was killed, the rest captured, and the crew of 23 was freed unharmed.

Other navies have carried out similar operations to rescue their citizens- but what the Russian force did next would never have entered the imaginations of postmodern US-EU policymakers. After inspecting the captured vessel, the commanding officer of the Marshal Shaposhnikov then had ten pirates put aboard another small boat and set adrift without supplies or navigation. This made the news headlines, and a short time after defense ministry sources in Moscow reported that the pirates in all likelihood died at sea, though without explaining how. The video below, shot by Russian marines in the Indian Ocean, might shed some light on the pirates’ fate:

 

 

There are a few interesting features to the story (if this video is indeed a genuine- though incomplete- record of the rescue’s aftermath, as it does seem to be).

- The man lying wounded on the ground is not a Somali; rather, he looks to be from Pakistan (1:15). Arabs are briefly mentioned over the radio, though it is not clear in what context (2:05).

- A number of the other detainees seem to be Pakistanis, and they raise their hands when a Russian marine calls out the country, after being told to “bring up the Pakistanis” by a comrade (3:25).

- At (5:00) the sapper is congratulated on a job well done (in exceedingly informal language) after the boat’s detonation. This could have been an empty pirate craft, but blowing it into the air would seem a waste of time, film and explosives. At the very closing of the video one of the ship’s crew remarks, “That’s how it needs to be done.”

The clip’s thrust leads one to believe that Moscow ordered the pirates summarily executed. Yet this was not an extrajudicial killing; in accordance with centuries of maritime law, the action has a firm foundation in precedent. The Marshal Shaposhnikov’s captain and the Russian leadership (for an order like this would necessarily have come from the Kremlin) were within their rights to send the pirates sky-high. The British New Law Dictionary of 1762 states succinctly that pirates are subject to summary execution upon capture:

A Piracy attempted on the Ocean, if the Pirates are overcome, the Takers may immediately inflict a Punishment by hanging them up at the Main-yard End; though this is understood where no legal judgment may be obtained; And hence it is, that if a Ship shall be on a Voyage to any Part of America, or the Plantations there, or a Discovery of the Parts; and in her Way is attacked by a Pirate, but in the attempt the Pirate is overcome, the Pirates may forthwith be executed without any Solemnity of Condemnation, by the Marine Law.

Our ancestors saw the deterrent value of such punitive measures, and recognized pirates as hostis humani generis, enemies of mankind, not misunderstood and disenfranchised cases for transnational social programs.

For fighting pirates in time-honored fashion, the Russians will doubtless be condemned by Western policy elites for their brutality and offensively undemocratic 19^th-century understanding of the world. This is encouraging news for those who seek the restoration, ever so slightly, of a traditional West. Today's Russia has not yet reached her full potential as a bastion of conservatism, but we can take heart and learn from some of her successes at turning back, or just plain breaking, the clock.

The managers of U.S. interventions abroad tout quantitative measurements as "metrics of success" in pacifying the natives. So here's a metric the counterinsurgency crowd might find interesting: the number of U.S. soldiers seeking treatment for opiate dependency rose 50% in conjunction with Washington's recent "surge" into Afghanistan.

The rise in opiate addictions among U.S. servicemen is no mere coincidence with the surge in the Hindu Kush. Afghanistan produces over 90% of the world's supply of heroin. Over the course of five years, the Army's figure has "skyrocketed" over 500%, from 89 in 2004 to 529 in 2009. And these are only the reported instances, which usually compose a minority of actual cases of drug abuse. It's becoming increasingly hard to ignore the nexus between narcotics trafficking in Eurasia and U.S. foreign policy.

The U.S. foreign policy establishment, known for its support of the Orange Revolution, now seems to have a case of the Ukraine blues. It's not difficult to surmise why journalists, think-tankers and government officials inside the beltway are so deflated.

In January elections, Viktor Yushchenko's drive to integrate Ukraine into Euro-Atlantic structures went the way of the dodo, and the "Orangeists" were finally ejected from power. Viktor Yanukovich has since taken the helm and initiated a rather sensible policy of not antagonizing Russia.

Yanukovich has taken specific actions with this policy in mind. He has dissolved Ukraine's state committee for NATO membership, and this Tuesday the Rada agreed, with plenty of theatrics from nationalist/pro-Western factions, to extend the Black Sea Fleet basing agreement with Moscow until 2042. While the government in Kiev has always been a dysfunctional entity, Yanukovich is pursuing actual Ukrainian interests. In return for keeping the Russian navy in Sevastopol, the new Ukrainian administration secured a 30% markdown on natural gas imports (to be covered by Russian reserves).

Ukraine's realignment with Russia frustrates Washington's strategic objectives in wider Eurasia, or as The Washington Post delicately puts it, "presents other challenges for U.S. goals in the region." The country is undoubtedly the central element in American geopolitical plans for the former Soviet space. If Ukraine were to fall into the Western orbit and host NATO forces on its territory, just pull out a map to see what that would entail for the Russians. Moscow is 490 km from its western frontier with Ukraine.  Effective Russian control of the Caucasus would evaporate, since Moscow's interior lines would be severely compromised by a NATO force posture in the Crimea. U.S. strategists know this- people in the Pentagon and NSC are paid to understand and exploit these sorts of things. The Orange Revolution generated such enthusiasm among the foreign policy community because of its subversive potential in both political and strategic terms.

With the coming of the spring thaw, it's another season of riots and intrigue in Eurasia. And amidst local power plays and rumors of Great Game covert action, Washington's color revolution program is disintegrating.

Kyrgyzstan's President Kurmanbek Bakiev, leader of the U.S.-backed "Tulip Revolution" of 2005, was forced to flee Bishkek last Wednesday as political dissatisfaction accelerated into armed clashes with police and widespread looting. Seventy-eight people were killed. In the aftermath of the uprising, the Kyrgyz opposition has seized power, and with the cooperation of the Interior Ministry seems to be bringing order back to the city center. Meanwhile Bakiev is in the southern city of Osh, announcing to anyone who will listen that he's still the president. Bakiev has called for negotiations with the opposition, though it seems a little late for that, since he's been chased out of the capital.

The Kyrgyz who took to the streets were exasperated with the regime's mismanagement, nepotism, increasing brutality and endemic corruption. Yet these phenomena are all enduring features of the political landscape in Central Asia. Whatever slogans various factions display to energize the mobs, political struggles here revolve around regionally-based clans and their patronage networks. In the case of Kyrgyzstan, add in remote and mountainous topography, an impoverished population, almost no energy resources (besides hydropower coveted by the Uzbeks) and Soviet-drawn borders designed for dysfunction. With these factors in mind, it's clear that the country is vulnerable to instability in a neighborhood contested by the great powers.

Continued From Part I

While the Russian people might want to oppose wars in Chechnya for humanitarian reasons, the internal pernicious influences of a militarized state alone should convince them that attempting to rule the North Caucuses isn't worth the cost. After the First Chechen War, the Republic was nominally independent but in a state of chaos. The region was awash in weapons and the Grozny government had little control outside the capital. Already by 1997 there was a split in the Chechen leadership between those who wanted to find an eventual solution with the Russians and others who saw the need to not only completely break away from Moscow but "liberate" the province of Dagestan and the 100,000 Chechens who lived there.

With Chechnya filled with many weapons but few jobs, partly thanks to Russia's blockade, kidnapping became big business. Four British telecommunication workers were beheaded in December 1998 and the Russian deputy interior Minister General Gennadii Shpigun was killed while in Grozy to negotiate with Chechen president Aslan Maskhadov.  

In 1995, Al-Qaida commander Ibn Al-Khattab arrived in Chechnya.  Bringing funding from Gulf wahhabists, he became a close ally of rebel leader Shamil Basayev. In its international isolation, Chechnya became dependent on the Arab world for money between the two wars. President Maskhadov tried to co-opt the radicals by appointing Basayev prime minister, though the latter himself found the Islamists difficult to control.  In February 1999, Maskhadov announced that Chechnya was in the process of adopting sharia law.  

On Monday, two female suicide bombers blew themselves up on the Moscow subway, killing 39 people. On Wednesday, more bombings killed another twelve Russians, including nine police officers. These are the latest in a series of attacks on the Russian Federation by Muslims. The Russian victims, who live in a modern city and go about on the subway, are much like us, and there are many who are apt to see this conflict as part of a "Clash of Civilizations" with Islam, a piece with the global war on terror and America's campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan. Charlie Szrom of National Review Online, for instance, couselled that we remember that "we remain locked in a global struggle with an enemy that seeks to continually harm American interests." But pace the conservatives, to understand the attacks in Moscow, we ought to look not to the Koran but the history of the North Caucuses. Russia's attempts to conquer the region have been bloody and futile and have created as much of a psychological crisis as they do a humanitarian one. 

The fact of the matter is, while Europe and America were foolish enough to bring Muslims into their countries, the Chechen situation is closer to that of the Palestinians, who have been displaced and oppressed by a foreign power. But unlike the Palestinians, nobody taken seriously among the Chechens has ever questioned Russia's right to exist or claimed anything more than the lands his people are currently living on.  

It is highly likely that the March 29^th terrorist strikes in Moscow were carried out by Chechen female suicide bombers, also known as "black widows." After six years, Chechen jihadist cells have pulled off another successful attack against innocent Russians only minutes from the Kremlin.

The official U.S. response to the bombings has been to condemn the violence and "stand with" Russia, though support in these matters rarely extends beyond statements for the press. Beyond public diplomacy, what policy line does Washington actually pursue in relation to the Caucasus?

Ukraine's announcement that it will pass a law that will bar the country from joining NATO has been greeted with barely concealed relief in Moscow, Paris, Berlin and Rome. It is also good news for the security interests of the United States. The time has come not only to give up on NATO expansion, but also to abolish the Alliance altogether.

Encouraging an impoverished, practically defenseless nation such as Ukraine to join a military alliance directed against the superpower next door, thereby stretching a nuclear tripwire between them, had never been a sound strategy. Article V of the NATO Charter states that an attack on one is an attack on all, and offers automatic guarantee of aid to an ally in distress. The U.S. would supposedly provide its protective cover to a new client, right in Russia's geopolitical backyard, in an area that had never been deemed vital to America's security interests.

From the realist perspective, accepting Ukraine into NATO would mean one of two things: either the United States is serious that it would risk a thermonuclear war for the sake of, say, the status of Sebastopol, which is insane; or the United States is not serious, which would be frivolous and dangerous.

Vanity Fair has an interesting article on the life and death of The eXile, the delightfully subversive English-language Russian newspaper. An excerpt:

Faxed to the offices of the newspaper late on a Friday afternoon the spring before last from somewhere within the bowels of Rossvyazokhrankultura, the Russian Federal Service for Mass Media, Telecommunications, and Cultural Heritage Protection, it announced the imminent “conducting of an unscheduled action to check the observance of the legislation of the Russian Federation on mass media.” The Exile, a Moscow-based, English-language biweekly, stood accused of violating Article Four of that legislation by encouraging extremism, spreading pornography, or promoting drug use. The letter scheduled the unscheduled action to take place between May 13 and June 11. This being Russia, it wasn’t faxed until May 22.

An Exile sales director, about to leave for the day, received the fax and phoned an editor, who called the real target of the letter, Exile founder and editor in chief Mark Ames, at that moment a world away in Los Gatos, California. Ames in turn promptly called a few lawyers in Moscow, who warned him he might be arrested if he returned. Someone, apparently, had it out for The Exile.

But who? Ames likes to indulge a grandiose paranoia whenever possible, and did. A functionary? An enraged oligarch? Someone on President Dmitry Medvedev’s staff, or, more to the point, in Prime Minister Vladimir Putin’s circle of spooks? (The Exile’s first cover story on Putin, in 1999, grafted the man’s head onto the body of a latex-clad dominatrix over the headline putin commands mother russia: kneel!) Egotism aside, the possibilities were in fact endless. Since its debut, in 1997, The Exile, which read like the bastard progeny of Spy magazine and an X-rated version of Poor Richard’s Almanack, had pilloried, in the foulest terms possible, almost everyone of importance, and no importance, in Russia, and had made a point of violating not one but all of Article Four’s provisions. But everyone knew that.

So why now?

No one seemed to know that.

The one thing that Ames did know: he was going back to Moscow. Putin’s Russia is an infinitely more dangerous place for journalists than the crumbling country that had drawn Ames 15 years before from the same suburban town where he paced about now, but still it was Russia, and not America, that was his spiritual home. It was not for nothing he’d named his paper The Exile.

Several days after Ames returned to Moscow, the dour Federal Service officials, three men led by a woman, arrived at the paper’s office. When they walked in, a staffer old enough to remember some of the worst parts of the Soviet era, crossed herself and simply ran from the office, Ames says. The officials questioned Ames for more than three hours, going through issue after issue of The Exile, by turns offended, disgusted, baffled. Ames suppressed his urge to start cursing at the officials in mat, Russian’s profane slang, as he watched them thumb through his life’s work, but his restraint meant little: news of the interrogation soon got out, and stories appeared in the Russian press, The Wall Street Journal, and Reuters. Ames’s investors broke off contact. The distributors stopped sending trucks. “They worried that everybody would be sent to Siberia,” Exile sales director Zalina Abdusalamova says.

Just like that, The Exile’s era was over.

You can follow the eXile staff at a new site that follows world news, The eXiled.