| The Original Five Frameworks For Viewing McCain's Fanning The Flames vs. Russia
Just to review, here are the original five frameworks I proposed:
(1) The Republican's "October Surprise". Named for a long-suspected, and now virtually certain clandestine plot by the 1980 Reagan/Bush campaign to prevent the release of American hostages by Iran prior to the 1980 election, thus ensuring Jimmy Carter's defeat. A similar effort by Richard Nixon, to sabotage the 1968 Paris Peace Talks, and prevent the election of Hubert Humphrey, has been solidly confirmed. Thus, deliberate interference in foreign affairs by the McCain campaign would be part of an established pattern of GOP lawlessness in manipulating the outcome of presidential elections, and there is increasing reason to think that McCain's campaign--or at least individuals associated with it--played a role in precipitating this crisis. They are certainly involving themselves in keeping it alive.
(2) The "Bush Dyslexicon" analysis. In 2001, Mark Crispin Miller published The Bush Dyslexicon: Observations on a National Disorder, in which he argued that Bush's difficulty in expressing himself coherently ("I know how hard it is to put food on your family," etc.) was confined to subjects he was not really interested in. When it came to what he cared about--primarily sports and hurting people--he was routinely quite lucid. The same appears to apply to McCain, as he has suddenly become quite sharp and highly focused following a long period in which he has appeared increasingly "Dazed and Confused" as TPM titled a recent vidoe compilation of his visible disorientation.
(3) The comfortable Cold Warrior. McCain's long-time hostility to Russia--even after the collapse of the Soviet Union--is indicative of mindset frozen in the Cold War Era. While there are certainly others whose experience in that era has limited their ability to adapt to the post-Cold War world, the recent events serve as a powerful reminder that McCain is one of the most deeply tied to that era, and the most incapable of adjusting to the world as it has been now for almost the last 20 years.
(4) The Neocon's Agenda for world dominance. Because the neocon adventure in Iraq has turned out so disasterously, most people fail to appreciate that Iraq was supposed to be a cakewalk, and that the neocon's real primary targets are China and Russia. Although not strictly a neocon--his attitudes derive more from the imperialist naval doctrine that animated the birth of America's "Great White Fleet" 100 years ago--McCain has been a neocon darling since 1999-2000 campaign, when he was their favorite far more than George W. Bush.
(5) "Rogue State Rollback" is the specific neocon formulation McCain embraced in the 1990s for rationalizing and selling the world dominance agenda. As a justification, it is far more durable and adaptable than misdirecting blame for 9/11, which can probably only be done one or two more times. The situation with Russia and Georgia is only a slight variant on that formulation.
I'll be expanding on these five frameworks in future installments But for now, I want to take up the new one first, the "stab in the back." I had actually thought of it before, but thought that I'd deal with it as a subsidiary point. What got me thinking otherwise was this, from Digby:
Tomorrow's Cause
by digby
Kevin says:
I'm willing to bet that a decade from now, far from being seen as the first step in reassembling Russia's old empire, the Russo-Georgian war will be virtually forgotten, a tiny, week long border conflict over a couple of unimportant territories that had been in limbo for 17 years and were bound to blow up sooner or later
If there was no such thing as neoconservatism, I might agree. But I'm willing to bet that we will be hearing about "the betrayal" for some time to come. It's a perfect rallying cry for those who need perpetual war to accomplish their goals.
This is, indeed, the ultimate fail-safe of neocon madness: when all their half-baked schemes fall apart, they withdraw to their corner like a rabid dog, and feverishly dream of all who wronged and betrayed them, and feverishly dream of whom they bite back at tomorrow.
In my diary "Patriotism Smackdown: Barack Obama Vs. Hitler's Ghost? (Hegemony Is The Enemy Special Report--Pt5)", I wrote about the mythic "stab in the back" metaphor that played a crucial role in the rise of Naziism after Germany's defeat in WWI, and Kevin Baker remarkable 2006 article for Harpers, tracing the history the history of that narrative trope, from its birth in Germany down throough the years in America. The article, "Stabbed in the back! The past and future of a right-wing myth", is well worth reading on its own, and is copiously excerpted in my earlier diary, but the essential idea is quite simple: After the Germany military lost WWI, their defeat was psychologically unacceptable to large segments of the German public, and so a mythic image from Wagner's Ring Cycle was appropriated to displace blame from the "heroic" German military onto those their rightwing supporter most despised--civilian politicians, social outcasts--and, of course, the Jews.
In America, the myth made its first big splash as a way of explaining how the Cold War suddenly turned sharply menacing in the late 1940s and early 1950s--known now as the McCarthy Era, although it began well before McCarthy emerged as its defining personage. As Baker explains, the 1945 Yalta Conference was originally seen as a great diplomatic triumph for Roosevelt, and the American right was on the verge of extinction. But a series of seemingly inexplicable reversals left the American people desperately seeking explanations, and all-to-easily accepting a rightwing narrative of betrayal as an explanation.
Baker doesn't go into this, but the primary reason the American people were so rudely surprised was much like the reason they were shocked and bewildered by 9/11--we have, collectively, an appalling ignorance of the rest of the world, its history and conflicts. We are, as a nation, sufficiently isolated and privileged that we can afford such ignorance, at least in the short run, and the short run is all we know. It is enough for us that we feel benevolently towards others, which is all to the good, of course. But good feelings don't mean much to people halfway around the globe, when those feelings aren't matched by our foreign policy on the ground.
The reality after WWII was that the old system of European colonialism had been shattered for good. Instead of taking the side of those liberated--most of whom regarded us at the time as heroic progenitors, the first revolutionary country to throw off the yoke of European domination--we sought to replace the Europeans, although generally with much more indirect form of rule. This, in turn, made it all the easier for the Communists to align themselves with the forces of nationalist self-determination kindled by WWII, in which local communists and socialists had often played a leading role.
Still, there was a tremendous opportunity for us to ally with these forces, if we were but willing to accept a democratically-based, ideologically diverse array of alliances. This was clearly the case with Ho Chi Minh in Vietnam, who had been a US secret agent during WWII (OSS Agent 19), and who modelled Vietnam's 1945 Declaration of Independents on our own. The OSS officers who worked with him recommended allying with him to their superiors, but they were ignored. Such was the pattern that prevailed at the time.
This below-the-radar betrayal of our own ideals, and those inspired by them, was a major factor in the reversals experienced between Yalta in early 1945 and the outbreak of the Korean War in late June, 1950. It was not the only factor, of course, but is was a very important one--just as our backing of Middle East tyrants, amd later arming of religious extremists to fight the Soviet Union played a significant role in the emergence of al Qaeda and the Taliban. Rather than seek deep understanding of these surprising turns of affairs, in both cases we preferred simpler narratives of pure evil abroad, matched by internal betrayal.
And thus it was that a myth greew up around Yalta, as a triatorous sellout of America, while conservatives post-9/11 blamed liberals for the attacks, fantasizing about traitorous "fifth columns", utterly ignoring both the failures of the Bush Administration and simple fact that Western secular liberals shared nothing at all in common with Middle Eastern Islamic fundamentalists.
In between the two eras, of course, came the Vietnam War, with it's high profile variations on the stab-in-the-back narrative, inlcuding the retroactively-formed myths of anti-war protesters spitting on returning veterans, of Jane Fonda playing a Tokyo Rose-style roll in undermining our troops, and of the American government mot just abandoning "POW/MIAs" (a previously non-existent hybrid category) , but deliberately preventing its armed forces from "winning the war."
But for the purpose of illuminating what's going on with Russia and Georgia today, our attention should focus less on Vietnam and more on Yalta, and how that myth ultimately clashed with reality.
Yalta, Then
About Yalta, Baker writes:
Yalta was, in fact, originally considered the apogee of the Roosevelt Administration's accomplishments, ensuring that the hard-won peace at the end of World War II would not soon dissolve into an even worse conflict, just as the botched peace of Versailles had led only to renewed hostilities in the years after World War I. The conference, which took place in the Soviet Crimea in February 1945, was the last time "the Big Three" of the war--Roosevelt, Churchill, and Stalin--would meet face-to-face. The U.S. negotiating team went with specific goals and was widely perceived at the time as having achieved them. Agreements were reached on the occupation of the soon-to-be-defeated German Reich, the liberation of those Eastern European countries occupied by or allied with Germany, the Soviet entrance into the war against Japan, and, most significantly in Roosevelt's eyes, on the structure of a workable, international body designed to keep world peace, the United Nations.
FDR's presentation of these agreements before a joint session of Congress that March met with almost universal acclaim. This was not surprising. Roosevelt, who had been at Versailles as a junior member of the Wilson Administration, was preoccupied with making sure that his vision for the postwar world did not founder on any partisan bickering with Congress. Before leaving for Yalta, he had briefed a group of leading senators from across the political spectrum on what he hoped to accomplish, and solicited their opinions and questions. The delegation he took with him to the Soviet Union was a bipartisan team of senior diplomats, advisers, and military men, and he continued to cultivate support from all quarters on his return to the United States. Such prominent Republican figures as Arthur Vandenberg, the once-isolationist senator from Michigan turned internationalist, and Thomas Dewey, Roosevelt's fierce opponent in the 1944 presidential race, expressed general support for the results of the Yalta conference. Taft and the right wing of the Republican Party were more skeptical, but offered no substantial criticisms.
Here, BTW, is a map showing where Soviet forces had advanced to at the time of Yalta:
The American right would later claim that secrete agreements were signed, giving the Soviets Eastern Europe. These and other hysterical claims helped elect General Dwight D. Eisenhower President in 1952--not that the war hero couldn't have won on his own, under the banner of either party--but after he was elected, it was definitely discovered that no such secret agreements existed. Worse yet, when the Soviet tanks rolled into Hungry in 1956, Eisenhower did nothing more to stop it than Truman had done to stop the Soviet takeover of Eastern Europe, most of which was accomplished with much less dramatic actions.
All this yammering obscurred two basic facts. First was the centuries-long history of Russian xenophobia, feed by its sensee of cultural and military inferiority to the Wrst. This bone-deep attitude regarded Easter Europe as a necessary buffer against the West--a border region whose subserviance to Russian (and hence, Soviet) interests was an absolute necessity for security reasons. Second was the history of Russia's successful defeat of European invaders. And not just any European invaders, but the most powerful and dangerous military forces of the 19th and 20th Centuries: Napoleon in the early 19th Century and Hitler in mid-20th.
Given these two fundamental histroical realities--centuries of xenophobia, and two historic victories over the most potent of invaders--the Soviet annexation of Eastern Europe was anything but surprising. And given America's quick reversion to its pre-WWII inwardness and isolationist mindset, there was little, if anything, that America could do about it. When Eisenhower failed to act in 1956, that pretty killed the narrative as a serious policy matter. But that only made it more intensely felt by true believers.
Georgia, Today
The background for the current situation is Georgia is a very complicated one, involving all sorts of intrigue and forms of kickbacks, from militrary alliances to oil pipelines to lobbyist payoffs. But in one sense, it is very simple: Russia is still xenophobic, and West is still far away, and reluctant to act. Under Democrats as well as Republicans, US foreign policy has recklessly sought to hem Russia in, as if deliberately ignoring how this would only stoke ancient fears, and give the upper hand to internal forces that are least likely to be friendly to us. The combination of relentless NATO expansion, abrogating the ABM Treaty, and expanding missile-defense bases seems deliberately calculated to push all of the Russians' buttons. If Wes Craven wanted to scare a Russian audience, he couldn't have come up with a better combination.
At the same time, the use of Georgia as a pipeline route seems calculated to rub salt in all of Russia's wounds, while other Western overtures raise Georgian hopes along with Russian animosity. There seems to be no thought at all given to thinking in terms of policies that could lessen tensions between them. And so we have the the growing prospect of bringing Georgia into NATO, running addtional pipelines through Georgia, and providing US training for Georgian troops. On top of this, there is McCain's cozy relationship with Georgian President Saakashvilli, facilitated by McCain crony and Greogia's well-paid lobbyist, Randy Scheunemann, capped off by McCain's nomination of Saakashvilli for the Nobel Peace Prize in 2006.
With all this background, it's easy to see how things were in place for the Georgians to believe they had US backing for their move into South Ossetia. It's still unclear precisely what happened, but as Michael Klare said, as quoted in my earlier diary, "The Oil/Gas Factor in the Russia-Georgia Conflict ", there seems to be two different US foreign policies at work--one from Condi Rice, the other from the neocons, revolving around Cheney's office. And with McCain as the presumptive GOP nominee, it's easy to see how they could come to believe whatever he might have signaled them, especially since it would seem to indicate a line of succession, cutting the State Department out of the loop. In short, regardless of whatever actually did happen, all the elements are now in place for the Georgians to feel betrayed by the lack of US support. And if the Georgians feel that way, then as sure as the sun will shine, the American neocons will feel the same--and place the blame on liberal-traitor-commie-rats.
Every step of the way, McCain's presence has been felt, either openly acting, or doing God-knows-what in the shadows. At one point, Saakashvilli said they were talking every day. (As Jane Hampshire notes, "He called Saakashvili? Where is the wingnut outrage that greeted Nancy Pelosi and Jimmy Carter over ostensible violations of the Logan Act?") And at several points McCain quite deliberately upped the ante--for example, announcing he was sending campaign surrogates Lindsey Graham and Joe Lieberman to Georgia (again, as if he were already President). His intentions seem much more focused on the short term, gaining advantage for himself in the presidential race. But as he does so, he inevitably plants the sees for future "stab in the back" fantasies, as what he hints at, or seemingly promises outright goes far beyond what the US can realistically deliver.
Ich Bin Ein Shameless Hustler
II
I was of three minds,
Like a tree
In which there are three blackbirds.
Perhaps the crudest example of this was McCain's declaration, "We are all Georgians." It was a typically bizarre attempt to seem presidential, echoing JFK's declaration, "Ich Bin Ein Berliner", that would have worked, perhaps, if only McCain had had all the Versailles Press corps with him firing on all cylanders, and, of course, the enthusiastic Georgian crowds in front of him. But alas, he was only campaigning in York, Pennsylvania, and he didn't have anyone of remotely Kennedyesque speechwriting status with him. And so, the Boston Globe reported his cliche-ridden delivery:
The United States should stand with the democratic government in Georgia, he [McCain] said, adding that he had offered Americans' prayers and thoughts in a conversation with Georgian president Mikhail Saakashvili.
"He knows that the thoughts and the prayers and support of the American people are with that brave little nation as they struggle today for their freedom and independence. And he wanted me to say thank you to you, to give you his heartfelt thanks for the support of the American people for this tiny little democracy far away from the United States of America. And I told him that I know I speak for every American when I say to him, ' Today, we are all Georgians,' " McCain declared.
The pledge, however, struck even his good friend Saakashvili as rather hollow, as CNN's Politicker reported:
Yesterday, I heard Sen. McCain say, 'We are all Georgians now,'" Saakashvili said on CNN's American Morning. "Well, very nice, you know, very cheering for us to hear that, but OK, it's time to pass from this. From words to deeds."
In sharp contrast, when Kennedy said "Ich bin ein Berliner", his words were deeds:
"Ich bin ein Berliner" ("I am a Berliner") is a quotation from a June 26, 1963 speech by U.S. President John F. Kennedy in West Berlin. He was underlining the support of the United States for democratic West Germany shortly after the Soviet-supported Communist state of East Germany erected the Berlin Wall as a barrier to prevent movement between East and West.
The speech is considered one of Kennedy's best, and a notable moment of the Cold War. It was a great morale boost for West Berliners, who lived in an enclave deep inside East Germany and feared a possible East German occupation. Speaking from the balcony of Rathaus Schöneberg, Kennedy said, Two thousand years ago the proudest boast was civis Romanus sum [I am a Roman citizen]. Today, in the world of freedom, the proudest boast is 'Ich bin ein Berliner'... All free men, wherever they may live, are citizens of Berlin, and, therefore, as a free man, I take pride in the words 'Ich bin ein Berliner!'
Kennedy came up with the phrase at the last moment, as well as the idea to say it in German. Kennedy asked his interpreter Robert H. Lochner to translate "I am a Berliner" only as they walked up the stairs at the Rathaus (City Hall). With Lochner's help, Kennedy practiced the phrase in the office of then-Mayor Willy Brandt, and in his own hand made a cue card with phonetic spelling.
What gave Kennedy's words such potency was not just his physical presence, and their sheer audacity. It was also recent history and demonstable capacity so strikingly at odds with what is unfolding in Georgia today. A little more than a dozen years earlies, the Soviets had blockaded the land routes to Berlin, and the American-lead allies had responded with the Berlin Airlift:
The Berlin Blockade (June 24, 1948 - May 11, 1949) was one of the first major international crises of the Cold War. During the multinational occupation of post-World War II Germany, the Soviet Union blocked the three Western powers' railroad and street access to the western sectors of Berlin that they had been controlling. Their aim was to force the western powers to allow the Soviet controlled regions to start supplying Berlin with food and fuel, thereby giving them nominal control over the entire city.
In response, the Western Allies formed the Berlin Airlift to supply the city over pre-arranged air corridors. The effort was initially viewed with skepticism even in the countries mounting the attempt, as this sort of logistical effort had never been mounted before. The airlift to supply the German 6th Army at Stalingrad required 300 tons per day and rarely came even close to delivering this; the Berlin effort would require at least 5,000 tons a day, well over ten times as much. In spite of this, by the spring of 1949 the effort was clearly succeeding, and by April the airlift was delivering more cargo than had previously flowed into the city via rail.
The success of the Airlift was humiliating to the Soviets, who had repeatedly claimed it could never possibly work. When it became clear that it was, the blockade was lifted in May. One lasting legacy of the Airlift are the three airports in the former western zones of the city, which served as the primary gateways to Berlin for another fifty years.
The parallels between the Berlin Blockade and the erection of the Berlin Wall were unmistakable, and thus, the parallels between Kennedy's declaration and the Berlin Airlift were similarly clear. Although the words themselves did not alter a single stone, they metaphorically transposed Berlin from an remote outpost to a central position in the West, and the history of the Berlin Airlift--the reality of its accomplishement--backed up Kennedy's words 100%. There was no doubt that the fate of Berlin and the fate of the West were one. Nothing similar backed up McCain's words earlier this week, which is why his good friend Saakashvili was left wondering, in effect, "Is that all there is?"
Well, of course, it's not all there is. There will be decades and decades to come of stories about how Saakashvili and the Georgians were "stabbed in the back"--though, of course, not by John McCain.
p.s. Because it's well known that Karl Rove has been flitting about McCain's campaign, it's impossible to entirely dismiss the notion that this whole thing was planned months in advance, and that one reason the Bush Administration was so steamed about the prospect of Obama speaking before the Brandenberg Gate in Berlin was becuse of how this would have resonated with the memory of Kennedy's speech, and intereferred with McCain's invocation of it. This all seems faintly absurd as I type it, but if this had been the Bush Administration in the old days, instead of the Cross-Talk Express, things could easily be very different indeed.
III
The blackbird whirled in the autumn winds.
It was a small part of the pantomime. |
