1/17/2017

All Russian puppets?, by Serge Halimi (Le Monde diplomatique - English edition, January 2017)

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All Russian puppets?

S

9 February 1950, at the height of the cold war, a little known Republican senator
declared: I have here in my hand a list of 205 people that were known to the
secretary of state as being members of the Communist Party and who nevertheless
are still working and shaping the policy of the state department. With that,
McCarthy stepped into US history through the door marked infamy. No such list
existed, but the ensuing wave of anti-communist hysteria and purges shattered the lives of
thousands of Americans.
In 2017 it is plainly the loyalty of the next US president to his country that is at issue. With his
cabinet of generals and billionaires, reasons to fear him are legion. But the Democratic Party and
many in the western media seem obsessed with the bizarre idea that Donald Trump will be a
puppet for the Kremlin(1), and that he owes his election to data hacking orchestrated by the
Russians. McCarthyist paranoia may be a long time in the past, but the Washington Post has just
revived that history, on 24 November, relating worries about the possible existence of more than
200 websites that wittingly or unwittingly published or echoed Russian propaganda.
An ill wind is blowing in the West. And almost every election is assessed through the lens of
Russia. Whether discussing Trump in the US, Jeremy Corbyn in the UK or candidates as
different as Jean-Luc Mlenchon, Franois Fillon and Marine Le Pen in France, it is enough to
express doubts about sanctions against Russia or anti-Russian theories from the CIA an
institution surely as infallible as it is beyond reproach to be suspected of serving the Kremlins
ends. In such an atmosphere, one dares not imagine the outpouring of indignation that would
have been aroused if Russia, rather than the US, had listened in on Angela Merkels telephone
calls, or if Google had delivered billions of pieces of private data collected online to Moscow
rather than the National Security Agency (NSA). Without quite realising the irony of his words,
Barack Obama used a press conference on 16 December to warn Russia: they need to understand
that whatever they do to us, we can potentially do to them.
Vladimir Putin knows this very well. In spring 1996 the ailing, alcoholic Boris Yeltsin, a (corrupt)
architect of his countrys social chaos, only survived catastrophic unpopularity through declared
support, both political and financial, from western states and timely stuffing of the ballot
boxes. Thus, Yeltsin, beloved by democrats in Washington, Berlin and Paris (despite shelling the
Russian parliament in December 1993, causing the deaths of hundreds of people), was re-elected.
And four years later, he transferred all his powers to his loyal prime minister, the delightful
Vladimir Putin...

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1/17/2017

All Russian puppets?, by Serge Halimi (Le Monde diplomatique - English edition, January 2017)

Serge Halimi is editorial director of Le Monde diplomatique.

Translated by George Miller

(1) In the words of Hillary Clinton, during her last television debate against Donald Trump, 19 October 2016.

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