TASS: back in USSR?

[Каскыр]

From: Andrei Sitov <WashTASS@aol.com>
>Date: Mon, 4 Aug 2003 Subject: AMERICA: BACK IN THE USSR?
>AMERICA: BACK IN THE USSR? A specter is haunting the US.
>By Andrei K. Sitov Andrei Sitov is the Washington Bureau Chief for
>ITAR-TASS News Agency of
>Russia. The views exressed in the article are his own.
>For the past 20 years I've been covering the US first as a Soviet and then
>as a Russian reporter. Since the end of the Cold War my country has been
>trying to become more like America. Meanwhile the US, especially after
>9/11, increasingly resembles the old Soviet Union. Please consider:
>- The US acts as if it believes it knows what's best not only for the
>Americans but for the rest of the world and shows a willingness to force
>this belief down other people's throats. For a while - until the terrorist
>attacks - its "elite" even toyed with the ridiculous notion of an "end of
>history". This is an idea common to all totalitarian regimes (some scholars
>say it is rooted in the Armageddon prophecy in the Bible). At least
>Fukuyama's version did not envision a blood bath.
>- The US continues to define its national greatness through military
>strength - as witnessed by the new National Security strategy. The Soviet
>Union always used to do that; Dr. Rice told me she thought it would be a
>grave mistake for Russia to act in a similar manner. To me it seems to be
>an example of "do as I say, not as I do".
>- The US shows a dislike for international agreements across the board -

>from arms control to the International Criminal Court and from Kyoto

>protocols to tobacco trade. The Soviet Union also seemed to comply only
>with those international obligations that it liked. To be fair, as
>Secretary Powell pointed out to me, Americans don't break agreements - they
>either don't sign them or withdraw from them.
>- The US now liberates other nations without being asked. The Pentagon
>advisor Mr. Perle told me that "there are more important things than
>national sovereignty". Of course the late Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev had
>a "doctrine of limited sovereignty" named after him. Mr. Perle also said
>the US always leaves the lands it occupies. I shared that opinion with a
>Mexican colleague; he begged to differ.
>- The US has a curious relationship with its allies. It often carries their
>water for them - and gets resentment and ridicule in return. The Soviet
>satellites used to pay lip service to their "unbreakable alliance" with the
>USSR and sneer behind our backs. They also had a higher standard of living.
>The transatlantic partners of the Americans say the US is indispensable
>(Secretary Albright was actually vain enough to repeat it publicly; when
>I challenged her, she said "other countries call us that"). In the meantime
>the Europeans at least once in the last decade managed to get the US
>actually go to war for them - in former Yugoslavia. They also believe they
>live in a much better and more civilized way than the Americans do.
>Personally I think the Americans (like the Soviets in the past) have only
>themselves to blame for this situation. They get what they asked for and
>shouldn't complain about it.
>- The US conducts a large-scale propaganda effort that may not always be
>entirely truthful. It uses purely totalitarian slogans such as "Who's not
>with us is against us". The government effort is directly coordinated by
>the White House though a special office that sends out "Daily Messages"
>with key talking points (in Soviet days this was a standard operation
>procedure for the Kremlin; it is still used in some post-Soviet states).
>The latest press conference of President George W. Bush was by his own
>admission orchestrated (this was written before the press conference on
>July 30th which was also carefully staged - AS); the White House was never
>really challenged on it.
>The press seems to have accepted new rules of the game which generally
>conform to the so called "patriotic consensus". The coverage of the war in
>Iraq by "embedded" journalists (even we at ITAR-TASS had one at an air
>carrier) was a perfect example. The reporters were filing directly from the
>front lines. Yet it seems nothing that the government wouldn't want to be
>known made it to TV screens and newspaper pages. At least one myth - the
>Jessica Lynch story in the original propagandistic version - flourished for
>a surprisingly long time. There's at least one genuine taboo in American
>journalism: admitting that the 9/11 highjackers were personally brave and
>committed to their murderous cause.
>
>- The US now has a new "super agency" - the Department of Homeland Security
>- whose name is best translated into Russian as an equivalent of the old
>KGB. It also has some of the KGB functions. A color-coded system of alerts
>adds to the feeling of permanent anxiety, the expectation of new threats

>from external and internal enemies.

>Internal security has been tightened dramatically. Borders are being sealed
>off; the rules of immigration and international travel are hardened. Spying
>and informing on your neighbors - a staple of any totalitarian regime - is
>encouraged. A government-run "total information awareness" system has been
>created. It's reportedly designed to hold the amount of data - much of it
>on private citizens - equal to all the Internet pages over the past 5 years.
>
>
>- The US government seeks and receives additional powers to interfere into
>people's lives both through new laws and a more restrictive application of
>old ones. It runs a detention camp at a legal no-man's land in Guantanamo,
>Cuba. The foreign detainees including some Russians have no legal status
>and allegedly can be held indefinitely. Some of the detainees are now
>nearing a trial by military tribunals potentially facing death penalty.
>- As a result of all of the above the doctrine of containment created to
>confront the Soviet Union is now increasingly applied by the outside world
>to the US - in practical policy if not in name. On numerous occasions
>people from the third world and even Europe told me they wished the USSR
>was back - not for its own sake but as a counterbalance to America.
>I believe the Soviet Union collapsed largely because it was not telling the
>truth about itself either to its own population or to the world. The
>Russians do not like to think of themselves as losers in the Cold War
>(after all they peacefully rejected communism and won their freedom). But
>generally speaking, from a moral standpoint, losing may actually be
>preferable to winning. If you lose, you have to ask yourself why it
>happened and face your own shortcomings, weaknesses and lies. Meanwhile the
>illusions, propaganda and lies of the winning side are usually justified
>and reinforced.
>Besides, current American policies seem to give comfort to a number of less
>than democratic nations around the world including some former Soviet
>states.
>Americans may not recognize their own country in my description. I know for
>a fact that many Russians also refuse to believe it. After all America
>embodies the best values and ideals that we wanted to make our own when we
>started our post-communist transition.
>That is exactly why I'm worried about the seeming "Sovietization" of
>America. If not yet a reality, it's a dangerous trend, a spooky "specter".
>And I think the Americans would be well advised to recognize the threat and
>take it seriously. They have everything they need to defeat it while
>safeguarding their legitimate security interests and to win back the
>confidence and admiration of their friends and partners around the world.