More thoughts about the upcoming election

[belgareth]

I am oppossed to other countries being involved in our political process

and by the same token I am against the US being involved in other country's politics. The comments about who the

Russians support should be ignored other than the reasons they feel that way. What is said about the problems of the

Clinton Admin being involved in Russian politics is important in my opinion as is their concern about Kerry. This is

an area I'd like to see addressed by both candidates.



__________________________________________________ ________

Kremlin Expressing Support for Bush


By STEVE GUTTERMAN, Associated Press Writer





MOSCOW - Russia's

political elite has been showing a striking willingness to take sides in the U.S. election — most notably President

Vladimir Putin (news - web sites), whose expression of support for President Bush (news - web sites) reflects more

than the two leaders' warm relationship.

Analysts say it stems from

a deep distrust of U.S. Democrats, dating back to Jimmy Carter's focus on human rights violations in the Soviet

Union, and a Kremlin calculation that John Kerry (news - web sites) would be tougher on Putin.



Many Russians, including the current team in the Kremlin, have a

lingering bad taste from what they perceived as the Clinton administration's intense involvement in Russia's

political and economic life. Some saw it as a factor in the rampant corruption that afflicted Russia under Boris

Yeltsin and the economic collapse of 1998.

"The Russian leadership

very much wants Bush to win," said Fyodor Lukyanov, editor of a leading foreign affairs journal here. The Kremlin,

he said, fears a Kerry administration would pursue "a policy of active participation in Russia's internal affairs."



Putin, who last year lambasted Bush for attacking Iraq (news - web

sites), all but endorsed him outright last week, saying international terrorists will celebrate a victory if he

loses.

As Putin moves to consolidate power after shocking terror

attacks, pushing for electoral reforms criticized as a major step toward authoritarianism, the last thing he wants

is an intrusive new U.S. administration.

"To believe that under

Bush, Putin will have carte blanche — 'Do what you want inside Russia' — is unrealistic," Lukyanov said. "But Bush

is far less concerned by the question of democracy in Russia than Kerry."

Others, however, emphasize that it is not clear whether a Kerry administration would be tougher on Russia than

a second Bush administration. The situation will be difficult to gauge until next year, when the winning candidate

makes key appointments.

There are plenty of Russia hawks close to

Bush, said Michael McFaul, a senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington. And

while Kerry's campaign rhetoric on Russia has been harsher than Bush's, he would be likely to be more compromising

as president than as a candidate, analysts say.

Bush was tough on

Russia in the 2000 campaign, saying Clinton was too soft on Yeltsin. But after his election, Bush eased up as he

pursued Putin's acquiescence on the creation of a national missile defense system — and, after Sept. 11, his

support in the war on terror.

Bush "criticized Clinton for being so

palsy-walsy with Yeltsin. He said, 'We won't have any of this Boris-Bill stuff,'" said Marshall Goldman,

associate director of Harvard's Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies. "Well, of course, now you've got

it: You've got George and Vladimir."

Despite some recent criticism,

which the Kremlin has dismissed as campaign posturing, Bush has sought Putin's support on issues including

terrorism, Iraq and Iran while paying little attention to events inside Russia — pleasing a president who craves

prestige on the world stage but is prickly about interference in his country's affairs.



While Putin has appeared to place his bets on the status quo, others

hope a change might charge up what many call stagnant U.S.-Russian ties.

Beyond talk of standing shoulder-to-shoulder against terrorism, there has been little concrete cooperation

since Russia offered support for the war in Afghanistan (news - web sites), McFaul said. While Moscow and Washington

have come closer on Iraq and the nuclear threat from Iran, discussions of Russian oil supplies to the United States

have borne little fruit.

Kremlin critics here, meanwhile, say Russia

would benefit from more White House pressure.

"I am certain that

this refusal to criticize the actions of the Russian authorities in Chechnya (news - web sites) and in the sphere of

human rights as a whole, for the sake of good relations and joint actions against terrorism, is a mistake," said

Lyudmila Alexeyeva, a prominent Russian human rights activist.

Fiona

Hill, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, said that to make progress on democracy in Russia, the winning

candidate will have to address "how one engages with an increasingly rigid Russia."

[DrSmellThis]

I am trying to understand your

position better. Certainly non-interference in someone's sovereignty is a principle reasonable people should

be able to agree on -- in principle. And certainly reasonable people can agree that we must respect the results of

democratic elections around the world, even if the results turn out not to be to our liking.

But could you

explain specifically what you mean by "being involved" in another country's "political process"? Do you mean

expressing an opinion on an election, or what?

And what happens if another country's "internal" actions affects

your country, or the world? What are the appropriate deliniations of concern there?

And what if someone else

expresses concern, but you really value your relationship with them and are trying to improve it?

How do you

keep your position from becoming a sort of schoolyard-level, "I don't give a crap what you think"?

Just out of

curiosity, what if a country like N. Korea would continue stockpiling nuclear weapons systems? Would it just be a

matter of thinking, "We don't care what they do inside their own borders"?

What do you think of the thesis that

the natural, irreducable "resting state" of things in a small world like ours is for there to be constant,

omnidirectional, mutual affects among it's nations? What would be the implications of this thesis for your

position?

***
BTW, that is a little strange of Putin. He must not take his own opposition to the war seriously,

or must just not know what he is thinking about as regards Bush being strong against terrorism (Has anyone really

seen evidence of any such "strength"?).

[belgareth]

Expressing an interest in or

concern about another country's politics is one thing, having a right to any say in them is another. Getting

involved to the point of creating or encouraging criminal activity in another country is utterly unacceptable. Do

you know that one group in Britian was encouraging their citizens to write letters to potential voters in this

country about our politics? Many of the recipients were rightfully furious.

Your question about N. Korea is a

good one. Why do we have the right to tell them they cannot build and test nuclear weapons? In the interest of world

piece whils we conduct an unwarranted war in still another country? Do we do the same with France? China? Britian?

Russia? How are we going to react when another country tells us the same thing? I didn't say asks for a treaty, I

said TELLS US! Rightous indignation, at the least? More likely, in a diplomatic fashion, telling them to go screw

themselves! I don't swallow the authoritarian line that we can do it because of who we are, how big we are or our

moral right to do so. I even question the right of the UN to do so, mainly because I am not sure of N. Korea being

part of thtet UN. I don't like them building nuclear weapons but that does not give me the power to control another

country. Negotiate, yes, order, NO!

[Friendly1]

It's not like we've taken as

hard a line with North Korea as we did with Iraq. And the reason why we aren't taking as hard a line with North

Korea as we did with Iraq is that Iraq had not yet crossed the line into nuclear weapons manufacturing. Our faulty

intelligence indicated they were on the verge of doing so.

Clearly, the Bush administration doesn't want to

precipitate a war with an aggressor state that possesses nuclear weapons. Who in their right mind WOULD want to do

that?

But American meddling in foreign governments (and their policies) goes all the way back to the Monroe

Doctrine (mid-1800s). President Monroe declared the Americas off limits to European meddling. He effectively

staked our claim for influencing our neighbors' governments.

We have been expanding our claim to influence

other nations outside the Americas since the Spanish-American War.

That IS the general complaint levelled

against us by nearly every nation in the Third World, and many of the nations in the Communist and former Communist

world (the Second World), including Russia: that the United States keeps meddling in other nation's internal

affairs.

Bush didn't start it. He didn't even increase it. We were already straddling the globe long before

he took office. Reagan probably pushed us farther along that path in the past generation than any other

President.

We do, after all, have Reagan to thank for Iraq. And Afghanistan.

It could be argued (perhaps

not entirely convincingly) -- and probably has been -- that Reagan-era politics led to 9/11.

Certain Reagan-era

economic policies led to the boom of the 1990s (which Clinton took credit for -- he did have an impact on the boom,

helping to expand it, but it started in the 1980s).

Almost every major conflict and economic initiative we are

pursuing today is rooted in the decisions made by Jimmy Carter (who gave us the problems with Iran and Russia) and

Ronald Reagan (who helped speed up the decline of the Soviet Union but at the expense of ignoring Africa, where the

United States had once helped maintain stability). Carter gave us the first post-World War II multi-hundred billion

dollar deficit (it was Carter's budget that was in effect in Reagan's first year). Reagan gave us Supply Side

Economics and 401(k) disasterism. Carter committed the United States to finding a peaceful solution to the

Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Reagan isolated and punished Libya, Syria, and Iran. Carter nurtured the

international Human Rights movement which has uncovered numerous conflicts of interest between American policies.



It just goes on and on.

Carter and Reagan, whose political views were so polarized, shaped the current world

more than any other two men in modern history.

[DrSmellThis]

Expressing an

interest in or concern about another country's politics is one thing, having a right to any say in them is another.

Getting involved to the point of creating or encouraging criminal activity in another country is utterly

unacceptable.

Agreed.

Do you know that one group in Britian was encouraging their citizens

to write letters to potential voters in this country about our politics? Many of the recipients were rightfully

furious.

I saw the story, but this makes no sense to me. Some private citizens in England wrote some of us

letters about their opinion. So what? They have freedom of speech, and we can choose to ignore their opinions just

like we can the countless other opinions we are exposed to with every blink of the eye. That is speech, not

interference. We have the "right" to be furious, of course, but it's a bit silly. If I got such a letter it would

be way more interesting than the spam in my mailbox from Ed McMahon. Here's the link with the American responses,

BTW:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uselections

2004/story/0,13918,1329858,00.html
I'm less than impressed with the class, intelligence and maturity of the

"righteously indignant" Ohio rednecks (I'm a former Ohio redneck, BTW)quoted in the mailbag.

Your

question about N. Korea is a good one. Why do we have the right to tell them they cannot build and test nuclear

weapons? In the interest of world piece whils we conduct an unwarranted war in still another country? Do we do the

same with France? China? Britian? Russia? How are we going to react when another country tells us the same thing? I

didn't say asks for a treaty, I said TELLS US! Rightous indignation, at the least? More likely, in a diplomatic

fashion, telling them to go screw themselves! I don't swallow the authoritarian line that we can do it because of

who we are, how big we are or our moral right to do so. I even question the right of the UN to do so, mainly because

I am not sure of N. Korea being part of thtet UN. I don't like them building nuclear weapons but that does not give

me the power to control another country. Negotiate, yes, order, NO!

In principle I agree, until it becomes a

real aggressive safety risk, as with the Cuban Missle Crisis. However, I also agree with international pressure and

economic sanctions as possible strategies to make nuclear disarmament more attractive, depending on

risk/demonstrated intent. But you are correct to point out the hypocrisy. We ought to have constant, multimodal

negotiations going with every "bomb country."

Any opinion on the other questions I asked?

[DrSmellThis]

http://www.amconmag.com/2004_11_08/cover1.html