At least six government departments breached in likely Russian intelligence operation thought to have begun in March
The US government is still in the dark over how deeply Russian hackers penetrated its networks during the worst ever cyber attack on federal agencies, members of Congress warned on Friday.
At least six government departments were breached in a likely Russian intelligence operation thought to have begun in March. Although there is no evidence that classified networks were compromised, it is not known what the hackers may have stolen or how long it will take to purge them.
In any other time, it would have been front-page news and ignited days or weeks of controversy. But last week, when a former top government official accused the president, for whom he once worked, of treasonous conduct, the story lasted nanoseconds and was blown away by the never-ending firehose of craziness and disinformation generated by the commander-in-chief and his crew. The tragedy here is not merely that Donald Trump escaped yet another scandal. It is that a fundamental and dire threat to the security of the United States did not receive sufficient attention and that American democracy remains in immediate danger.
I am referring to an interview retired General H.R. McMaster, who served as Trump’s national security adviser after Michael Flynn was bounced, gave to MSNBC, in which he said that Trump was acting like a traitor. This sounds hyperbolic. But how else to frankly characterize McMaster’s remarks? He stated that Trump “is aiding and abetting Putin’s efforts” to intervene in the 2020 presidential contest. This is a helluva accusation being leveled by a man who once was Trump’s most senior national security aide: the president is currently assisting a foreign adversary’s covert attack on the United States.
Why did McMaster’s accusation not produce a thunderclap that caused the world to stand still for a moment? There were articles in the New York Times and elsewhere about his charge. But the Times relegated the story to page 14. That’s hardly highlighting the issue. If you blinked, you easily could have missed this damning comment from McMaster, who noted that Vladimir Putin was currently mounting a “sustained campaign of political subversion against us” and that this operation was being “aided by a leader”—that is, Trump—“who doesn’t acknowledge” Moscow’s assault.
For months, news reports and Democratic members of Congress have noted that Putin, following up on his successful 2016 attack, is once again trying to sabotage an American presidential election to sow discord and help Trump win. Trump, though, has refused to address this. In fact, Trump and his minions have been blocking, suppressing, or discounting intelligence showing the Kremlin is attempting to subvert the 2020 election.
After intelligence officials in February told House lawmakers during a classified briefing that Russia was interfering to boost Trump, an irate Trump ousted Acting Director of National Intelligence Joseph Maguire and replaced him with a loyalist (who was subsequently replaced by another loyalist). Last month, the former intelligence head at the Department of Homeland Security filed a whistleblower complaint claiming that members of the Trump administration pressured him to withhold intelligence assessments detailing Russian efforts to spread disinformation aimed at influencing the 2020 election “because it made the president look bad.” The current director of national intelligence, John Ratcliffe, has tried to restrict the sharing of intelligence on Russia’s clandestine endeavor with Congress, and the Trump administration has downplayed Russia’s actions, attempting to deflect attention to Iran and China, whose efforts to influence the 2020 election are far less developed and are more indirect. (Ratcliffe also has been declassifying information to assist the latest Fox disinformation campaign, which claims Hillary Clinton and Obama administration conspired in 2016 to tie Trump to Russia. This is nonsense. There was no secret scheme. When Moscow targeted the Democrats with a hack-and-leak operation, Clinton’s aides publicly raised legitimate questions about Trump’s and his adviser’s connections to Russia.)
On Tuesday, DHS finally released its delayed annual assessments on threats to the United States—which the whistleblower had claimed had been withheld to protect Trump—and the report stated that “Russia is the likely primary covert influence actor and purveyor of disinformation and misinformation within the homeland.” But in an interview, Acting Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf insisted that China posed the greater overall threat to the United States
Last week, in another little-noticed development, several Democratic senators demanded that Wolf release a document that shows Trump’s attacks on mail-in voting are “consistent with a foreign influence campaign.” They contended that this unclassified report produced by DHS’ Office of Intelligence and Analysis “demonstrates that a foreign actor is attempting to undermine faith in the US electoral system, particularly vote-by-mail systems, in a manner that is consistent with the rhetoric being used by President Trump, Attorney General Barr, and others.” They did not say that Russia was the culprit, but that’s a good guess.
Democrats in Congress have been trying to sound the alarm about Putin’s schemes. Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) recently subpoenaed DHS for information related to the whistleblower complaint that alleged intelligence on Russia had been smothered. He also asked the intelligence community to monitor Russian disinformation efforts—particularly those that boost Trump’s criticism of mail-in voting. “Sure enough, it wasn’t long before the intelligence community started seeing exactly that,” Schiff said. “It was too enticing and predictable an option for the Russians. They have been amplifying Trump’s false attacks on absentee voting.”
On the Senate side, though, there has been little action. In August, the Republican-led Senate Intelligence Committee released a massive report that detailed Russia’s wide-ranging efforts to secretly help Trump in 2020. (The report showed that Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort colluded with a Russian intelligence officer, that Donald Trump Jr. tried to collude with a secret Kremlin plot to help Trump, that Trump and his aides sought to exploit the Russia attack while denying it was happening, and that Trump likely lied to Special Counsel Robert Mueller.) The committee acknowledged Putin was up to it again in 2020. But it has taken no public steps to address the Russian threat. Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, tells Mother Jones, “U.S. intelligence agencies have made clear Russia is intent on interfering in the 2020 election, and yet Republican senators and Donald Trump continue to obstruct any legislation or oversight to respond to the Russian threat. Republicans have refused to even hold a single oversight hearing in the Intelligence Committee this year on how to respond to Russia’s attack on our democracy.” Not one hearing.
On October 1, Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) tried to cast the spotlight on this brazen negligence. He posted a Twitter thread detailing what he called a “massive coverup campaign underway to disguise the octopus-like Russian election interference operation being run on Trump’s behalf.”
Murphy pointed out that in early 2020 intelligence reports started “coming into Congress about a giant, multi-layer Russian effort to help Trump in 2020. Bigger than what they did in 2016. Looks like Russians are trying to get U.S. persons – especially those close to Trump – to help.” In July, he said in this thread, “Dem leadership [wrote] a letter to FBI Director Wray, asking for an all-Congress briefing, especially because the reports we’re reading suggest Russian agents are trying to find Members of Congress to assist their interference operation.” But no such briefing came. Instead, the Trump administration released “vague” statements about possible Russian, Chinese, and Iranian intervention—which, Murphy calls, “very puzzling” because “Congress has never been briefed on any meaningful Chinese/Iranian interference plans.”
Murphy also noted that when the Treasury Department in September sanctioned Andriy Derkach, a Ukrainian politician and Russian intelligence officer promoting conspiracy theories about Joe Biden, there was “no press conference from Intel or the FBI or DHS that they’ve caught a Russian agent who has been in regular contact with the President’s inner circle.” Derkach had been in touch with Rudy Giuliani, Trump’s personal lawyer, who has been trying to collect and spread anti-Biden disinformation. The Trump administration made no fuss about this move. “What’s happening is clear,” Murphy tweeted. “American intel agencies, that are supposed to be totally apolitical, have been folded into Trump’s campaign. They are keeping info about Russian interference hidden, and overhyping info about China and Iran helping Biden.” And Murphy finished with this: “It’s why Trump’s former National Security Advisor, H.R. McMaster, said something today that is as shocking as it unsurprising. He said Trump is ‘aiding and abetting’ Putin’s interference campaign. Wow. But of course he is. And now you know the details.”
Which brings us back to the general and his demand that Trump call out the Russians for attacking the election. McMaster is currently peddling a book, which focuses on his big thoughts about foreign policy. It is not a tell-all about his tenure in Trumpland. But the insight he shared on MSNBC is worth the same sort of attention that was granted to Bob Woodward’s revelations about Trump purposefully downplaying COVID-19. Here is a former high-ranking Trump official stating that Trump is assisting an attack on the United States because he believes that serves his own political interests. McMaster ought to be asked more about this. And he ought to say more. (He did not respond to an email from me in which I posed several questions, including whether he had made any efforts as national security adviser to persuade Trump to take direct actions to protect the United States from Russian information warfare and how much Trump’s “aiding and abetting” assists the ongoing Russian operation.)
McMaster’s remarks and the GOP-endorsed Senate Intelligence Committee report are a firm rebuttal to the Trumpers’ long-running shouts of “no collusion” and their cries of “hoax!” Whether or not Trump directly conspired with Russian operatives—Donald Trump Jr. attempted to do so and Manafort indeed collaborated with a Russian intelligence officer—it is now (and has long been) clear that Trump’s great sin in 2016 was providing cover to the Russian operation and taking advantage of it. McMaster’s judgment about Trump’s current actions echo what Michael Isikoff and I concluded in our 2018 book, Russian Roulette: The Inside Story of Putin’s War on America and the Election of Donald Trump: Trump “had aided and abetted Moscow’s attack on American democracy.”
The Russia story can seem like old news, and Trump and his amen chorus have done all they could in the last four years to discredit and marginalize this historic scandal. But Putin has again targeted the United States, and Trump is again assisting Putin. A reunion of treachery is under way. Meanwhile, Trump’s GOP handmaids are doing nothing, as the US political system is endangered by an overseas foe. McMaster spoke up in one interview. Yet with Election Day only weeks away, he, other Trump alums, and members of Congress need to do so repeatedly and forcefully for Trump and the GOP’s grand act of betrayal to register during a time of chaos and information overload.
Trump is in league with an enemy plotting to infect and undermine a crucial election. And just as he has not protected the nation from the coronavirus, he has not safeguarded the American nation from Russia’s insidious attacks. As McMaster tells it, there is a turncoat in the White House. Other than the pandemic, what could be a greater threat to the United States and more deserving of continuous coverage and dread?
By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: October 7, 2020 ~ Charles Koch is the billionaire owner of Koch Industries, one of the largest private companies in the world with vast interests in fossil fuels, refineries, chemicals, lumber, paper and glass manufacturing. A subsidiary of Koch Industries is Koch Supply and Trading, which engages in commodities trading on a scale rivaling the largest banks on Wall Street. Charles Koch also heads an operation variously known as the Koch Network or the Kochtopus, because its tentacles are strangling the life out of representative government in the United States. The operation hosts semiannual strategy sessions where obscenely rich Americans get together to jointly commit hundreds of millions of dollars to keep Congress and the Oval Office in the hands of fossil fuel-friendly candidates who have demonstrated an obedience to a deregulatory agenda. Koch Foundation money and two dark money groups, Donor’s Capital Fund … Continue reading →
The joint statements between two countries are usually riveted on a particular event but in extraordinary circumstances involving great powers, it could assume an epochal character and can be viewed as diplomatic communication that reflects what the Germans call the zeitgeist
Donald Trump’s attacks on the U.S. elections are “disturbingly identical” to Russia’s, as CNN’s Brianna Keilar put it, and she showed us the video receipts to prove it.
Keilar read from two Department of Homeland Security memos that describe Russia’s tactics. Then, she played clips of Trump sounding like he could have been carrying out Putin’s marching orders:
Trump and Russia undermine electoral process:
DHS: Russia Likely to Continue Seeking to Undermine Faith in US Electoral Process.
TRUMP: The only way we’re going to lose this election is if the election is rigged.
It’ll end up being a rigged election or they’ll never come out with an outcome.
I think it’s going to be the greatest fraud ever. I think it’s going to be a rigged election.
Trump and Russia attack vote-by-mail:
DHS: We assess that Russia is likely to continue amplifying criticisms of vote-by-mail and shifting voting processes amidst the COVID-19 pandemic to undermine public trust in the electoral process.
TRUMP: This universal mail-in is a very dangerous thing. It’s fraught with fraud and every other thing that can happen.
Ballots are lost. There’s fraud, there’s theft.
Mail-in voting is going to rig the election.
Trump and Russia fear monger that ineligible voters will receive mail-in ballots:
Within just one week the recent attempt to revive ‘Russiagate’ has failed. It was an embarrassing failure for the media who pushed it. Their ‘journalists’ fell for obvious nonsense. They let their sources abuse them for political purposes.
On June 27 the New York Times and the Washington Post published stories which claimed that Trump was informed about alleged Russian bounty payments to the Taliban for killing U.S. soldiers and did nothing about it:
A Russian military spy unit offered bounties to Taliban-linked militants to attack coalition forces in Afghanistan, including U.S. and British troops, in a striking escalation of the Kremlin’s hostility toward the United States, American intelligence has found.
The Russian operation, first reported by the New York Times, has generated an intense debate within the Trump administration about how best to respond to a troubling new tactic by a nation that most U.S. officials regard as a potential foe but that President Trump has frequently embraced as a friend, said the officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive intelligence matter.
The New York Times (6/26/20) front-paged what “intelligence says”—while offering very little explanation of why they say they believe it, or why we should believe them.
Based upon a bombshell New York Times report (6/26/20), virtually the entire media landscape has been engulfed in the allegations that Russia is paying Taliban fighters bounties to kill US soldiers.
The Washington Post (6/27/20) and the Wall Street Journal (6/27/20) soon published similar stories, based on the same intelligence officials who refused to give their names, and did not appear to share any data or documents with the news organizations. “The Wall Street Journal and the Washington Post have confirmed our reporting,” tweeted the Times article’s lead author, Charlie Savage. The Post’s John Hudson seemed to back him up: “We have confirmed the New York Times scoop: A Russian military spy unit offered bounties to Taliban-linked militants to attack coalition forces in Afghanistan,” he responded.
Yet these statements were categorically untrue. The Times stressed how unsure they were about the allegations, using qualifying language throughout, such as “it was not clear” and “greater uncertainty.” And Hudson’s own article uses the phrase “if confirmed” in relation to the bounty claims, explicitly conceding they are not confirmed.
Despite the fact that the anonymous accusations were far from proven, and that both the Post and Journal included categorical denials from all those involved, including the White House, the Taliban and Moscow, much of corporate media treated the story as an established fact from the outset. “This is jaw-dropping,” fumed MSNBC host Rachel Maddow (6/26/20) about the “sickening” news. She throws in an “if this Times report is correct” before going on to treat is as “confirmed” information:
You know from this reporting in the New York Times, which has since been confirmed by the Wall Street Journal, that not only does the president know that Russia was paying for American soldiers’ deaths, paying rewards for Americans dead…his response to that is nothing except a friendly call.
CNN (6/26/20) ran the headline “Russia Offered Bounties to Afghan Militants to Kill US Troops,” while the Guardian (6/27/20) went with a British variant, “Russia Offered Bounty to Kill UK Soldiers”—in both cases presenting the allegations as facts.
‘Officials Said’
This would be troublesome enough, but there are a number of reasons to be skeptical of the veracity of the claims. Firstly, the Times, Post and Journal’s reports are all based on fundamentally untrustworthy actors who refuse to go on the record. Here is a list of all the sources mentioned in the Times report:
“According to officials briefed on the matter”
“Officials said”
“Officials said”
“Officials said”
“Said Dmitry Peskov, the press secretary for President Vladimir V. Putin”
“Zabihullah Mujahid, a spokesman for the Taliban, denied”
“The officials spoke”
“Russian government officials have dismissed such claims”
“Gen. John W. Nicholson Jr., the commander of American forces in Afghanistan at the time, said”
“Officials were said to be confident”
“Some officials have theorized”
“Officials have also suggested”
“The officials briefed on the matter said”
“Western intelligence officials say”
“American intelligence officials say”
“American officials say”
“Officials briefed on its operations say”
It is standard journalistic practice to name and check sources. The Society of Professional Journalists’ code of ethics insists that “reporters should use every possible avenue to confirm and attribute information before relying on unnamed sources,” and that we must “always question sources’ motives before promising anonymity,” because too many “provide information only when it benefits them.”
Without a name to go with the source, there are no consequences for sources (or journalists, for that matter) lying and spreading malicious rumors. Using an anonymous source is implicitly asking readers to trust a reporter’s judgment and credibility. The practice is less important with minor details in a story (e.g. “a city nurse said three people had been injured”), but grows exponentially more vital when the source is the basis for the article, and when there are massive consequences in publishing the story. That is why it should be reserved for whistleblowers or others facing serious harm if caught. The Times’ own guidelines on integrity strongly discourages the practice; “There is nothing more toxic to responsible journalism than an anonymous source,” wrote the paper’s public editor (New York Times, 5/30/04).
Allowing unnamed officials to set the agenda in news is something FAIR has constantly criticized (6/25/14, 3/29/16, 4/26/17), and regularly leads to outlets being burned (FAIR.org, 6/30/17, 12/3/18). Therefore, they should be used only when a reporter is completely confident in their veracity. Considering who the sources were for the Russian bounty scandal (intelligence officials), the story, as it was published, should never have left the drawing board. As we wrote recently (FAIR.org, 2/28/20):
It is the job of the covert security services to lie and manipulate. They are among the least trustworthy groups in the world, journalistically speaking, as part of their profession involves planting fake information. The only group less deserving of blind faith than spies would be anonymous spies.
Janine Jackson (Extra!, 11/11) noted that journalists’ anonymity agreement with official sources “works out swell for powerful people who’d prefer to avoid accountability for what they say, and terribly for citizens for whom that accountability is crucial.”
Unfortunately, reliance on such sources is near ubiquitous at the Times and the Post. In 2011, FAIR (1/11/11) found that virtually every article on Afghanistan appearing in the two outlets over the course of a week featured material from anonymous official US sources.
The information on the Russian bounties appears to have been both minimal and vague, with officials refusing to show any corroborating evidence or the documents they claimed to have, and were unable to link the accusations to any concrete, real-world events. Perhaps more solid information will be provided at a later date, but the fact that what has been presented so far has turned into a major story is bizarre in itself.
The first response of any credible journalist to receiving this tip, given to them by spooks who refused to put their names to it—and who freely admitted, as the Times report notes, that the information was derived from “interrogated” Afghan fighters, in a country were Human Rights Watch (4/17/19) says torture of detainees is “disturbingly high”—should have been to throw the story into the trash bin, at least until the officials agreed to go on the record. That the authors of the Times article share five Pulitzer Prizes between them suggests that this might not have simply been comically irresponsible and shoddy journalism, however, but something more intentional.
Endless War
As the three articles pointed out, the accusations come at a time when the Trump administration is negotiating with the Taliban and has committed to removing all troops from the country by next year (a move that is now being blocked by the House Armed Services Committee because of the bounty scandal). Crucial nuclear weapons limitations treaties are also expiring, with Moscow showing a keen interest in renewing them. But many officials argue the US should start a new atomic arms race, “spending” Russia into “oblivion.”
It’s bad news when the publication that tracks how close we are to the end of the world (Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, 1/23/20) switches its gauge from minutes to seconds.
Partially in response to the increased tensions between the two nations, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientistsrecently moved its famous Doomsday Clock up to 100 seconds to midnight, signalling that they believe the world is closer than it has ever been to Armageddon, even than during the Cuban Missile Crisis. This background should have been a red flag from the outset. It is rare that poor journalism threatens the fate of the planet, but increasing hostility between two nuclear-armed foes might be doing just that.
If the Taliban is indeed being paid to kill American servicemen and women, they are not doing a particularly good job of it. US losses in Afghanistan have slowed greatly, from dozens dying every month during President Obama’s surge to only 22 in the past year. Over 1,700 died under Obama, compared to just a few dozen under Trump.
To anyone concerned about protecting the lives of US troops, the logical answer would be to remove them from Afghanistan, as both Obama and Trump have promised. Yet very few of the countless reports questioned either the wisdom or the legitimacy of the 19-year US occupation of the country.
If the story is true, Russia would be mirroring semi-official US policy with regard to their own troops. In 2016, former acting CIA Director Michael Morell appeared on the Charlie Rose Show (8/8/16), and said it was his job to “make the Russians pay a price” for their role in the Middle East. When Rose asked if that meant killing Russians, he replied: “Yes. Covertly. You don’t tell the world about it. You don’t stand up at the Pentagon and say, ‘We did this.’ But you make sure they know it in Moscow.” Going further back, the US channeled vast amounts of money to the Afghan Mujahideen in the 1980s “to make sure Afghans could do everything possible to kill Russians, as painfully as possible,” in the words of influential Rep. Charlie Wilson.
The Plot Thickens?
Following up on the story, the New York Times published two further viral articles, claiming that Trump had been made aware of the Kremlin plot as early as February (6/29/20) and that Russia had sent large financial transfers to a Taliban-linked account (6/30/20). Yet both these stories suffered from the same deficiencies as the first one, depending on anonymous official sources making relatively unspecific claims while offering no evidence. Indeed, the unnamed “analysts” were only willing to say that the cash transfers were “most likely” part of the bounty scandal the Times had broken four days earlier. Yet the effect was to bolster the veracity of what had come before in many people’s minds.
One source for Business Insider (7/1/20) says ” it was well-known that groups in need of money could work with Russians,” another says “there were many affiliated groups that have maintained ties with Russia,” and the third is someone whose name Business Insider doesn’t know that it communicated with only through Facebook.
Meanwhile, Business Insider (7/1/20) ran a story “confirming” the unfolding bounty scandal, claiming that they had spoken to three Taliban sources who told them Russia and Iran offered them payments. As with the Times, however, the sources were unwilling to put their names to the accusations. Perhaps more comically, Business Insider admitted that it did not even know the name of one of the “Taliban commanders” it cited, communicating to him only via Facebook. If this is how credulous Business Insider is, I know a Nigerian prince who is eager to talk to them about an urgent business proposal.
Independent journalist Caitlin Johnstone (Medium, 6/28/20) suggested that corporate media could not be this obtuse, and that the affair suggested active collaboration between deep state and fourth estate, writing:
All parties involved in spreading this malignant psyop are absolutely vile, but a special disdain should be reserved for the media class who have been entrusted by the public with the essential task of creating an informed populace and holding power to account.
Media like the New York Times and Washington Post pour scorn on Trump administration officials daily, yet appear to display complete reverence to the national security state, treating three-letter agencies’ every utterance as gospel. In the wake of a number of high-profile police lies during the George Floyd protests, the Washington Post (6/30/20) reported that newsrooms across the country are reflecting on their relationship with law enforcement and will no longer accept “police said” as fact. Perhaps they should do the same with intelligence officials.
The series of debilitating military setbacks that Libya’s renegade general Khalifa Haftar suffered in recent months have spurred diplomatic activities over the conflict in the country. But the war is far from over.
Haftar’s dream of capturing Tripoli from the internationally recognized Government of National Accord (GNA) led by Prime Minister Fayez al-Sarraj has been dashed. Haftar’s Libyan National Army (LNA) has retreated from several cities northwest of Tripoli, near the border with Tunisia, as well as the al-Watiya airbase, a strategic asset southwest of the capital.
A comeback by Haftar can only take place in the fullness of time and that too, if his mentors—France, Egypt, United Arab Emirates (UAE), Saudi Arabia and Russia—repose confidence in him still. Haftar seems to have overreached, and the present setback dents his credibility.
Egypt reacted swiftly by getting Haftar and Aguila Saleh Issa, the head of the Tobruk-based House of Representatives—the third protagonist in the Libyan strife—over to Cairo for a patch-up, following which, on June 6, Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi announced a grandiose roadmap called the Cairo Declaration to end the Libyan conflict.
The Cairo Declaration envisages a ceasefire starting June 8 (which didn’t happen) followed by “disbanding militias, handing over their arms, pulling out foreign forces, electing a ruling presidential council representing all Libyans and drafting of a constitutional declaration to regulate elections for later stages.”
Sisi’s Cairo Declaration has been welcomed by the Gulf states and Russia, while the GNA backed by Turkey remains disinterested and hopes to make some more territorial gains so as to be able to negotiate from a position of strength. The GNA and Turkey estimate—rightly so—that any respite at this point will be utilized by Haftar and his backers to recoup and plan anew to return to the battlefield to make another bid to rule Libya.
In immediate terms, the bone of contention is the port city of Sirte and the al-Jufra airbase in the central region. Sirte is adjacent to the so-called “oil crescent” comprising Libya’s key oil terminals, and the GNA and Turkey intend to gain control over them.
As for al-Jufra airbase, the GNA and Turkey fear that Russia, which has a presence there, must be preempted from consolidating by bringing in reinforcements of mercenaries.
In tactical terms, the GNA and Turkey calculate that if the military pressure continues on Haftar, it will weaken him further, making it easier to eliminate him from the Libyan chessboard forever, depriving his backers of a surrogate figure.
For the first time after the latest phase of the conflict unfolded, Russian President Vladimir Putin engaged his Turkish counterpart President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in a phone conversation on June 10. The Kremlin readoutsaid:
“During their in-depth discussion of the developments in Libya, they expressed their concerns over the continued large-scale armed clashes in the country… Vladimir Putin noted that it was important to adhere to a ceasefire as soon as possible and to resume the intra-Libyan dialogue based on the decisions of the Berlin International Conference on January 19, 2020, and approved by UN Security Council Resolution 2510, as well as other initiatives aimed at a political and diplomatic settlement of the conflict.”
Interestingly, Ankara refrained from issuing any customary press release regarding the conversation. Turkish media merely reported, citing presidential sources in Ankara, that the two leaders “discussed tensions in Libya and Syria’s Idlib province.” Evidently, Turkey didn’t want to commit to a ceasefire yet.
Prior to engaging with Erdogan, Putin had also held discussions with Egyptian President Sisi and German Chancellor Angela Merkel (who had called him) to take a coordinated stance on the Cairo Declaration as a basis for UN-sponsored intra-Libyan talks.
If Moscow’s intention was to hustle Erdogan, it hasn’t worked. Erdogan is hanging tough. It remains to be seen whether Erdogan would give up his military campaign to capture Sirte and the al-Jufra airbase when Haftar’s forces are demoralized and his mentors are still groping for a way forward. On the other hand, Russia is unlikely to give up the base easily and will bring in mercenaries to counter the GNA offensive.
According to reports, Russia recently transferred over a dozen fighter jets to al-Jufra. Turkey anticipates that Russia has plans to turn al-Jufra into a military base. The specter of Russia establishing a military base in Libya also haunts the U.S. and NATO. On June 10, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu spoke with NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg regarding Libya as well as general security issues.
There is a congruence between Ankara, Brussels and Washington that any moves to establish a Russian military base in Libya must be preempted, as that would foreclose NATO’s planned intervention in Libya and future expansion plans in Africa, apart from weakening the alliance’s dominance of the Mediterranean while Russia strengthens its presence in the eastern Mediterranean and challenges Turkey’s historical preeminence in the region.
Indeed, a big contingent of Turkish forces and large quantities of weapons and aircraft have been transported audaciously across the Mediterranean along sea lanes and air space that are closely monitored by NATO, European Union and the United States. Yet, there has not been a single instance of interception—although there is a UN embargo on arms supplies to Libya.
Following a phone conversation with U.S. President Donald Trump on June 8 in which Libya was the main topic of discussion, Erdogan claimed that a “new era can begin” in Turkish-American relations. He added, “We had reached some consensus in the conversation… They [U.S.] are also curious about the developments in Libya. He [Trump] has confirmed the developments and that we [Turkey] are successful in Libya.”
Erdogan stressed, “Now the goal is to take Sirte completely, including the surroundings of Sirte. These are the regions where oil wells are located. It will be much more comfortable as soon as they are handled.” Clearly, Erdogan calculates that Turkey’s success in Libya holds the potential to shape its relations with the United States.
Erdogan is all pumped up. As a top Saudi establishment commentator, Abdulrahman Al-Rashed, wrote on June 9, “In a move of a kind not seen since the fall of the Ottoman Empire 100 years ago, Turkey crossed the Mediterranean.”
But Trump has since sprung a surprise by voicing support for a ceasefire. Washington is apprehensive over reports that Egypt may send its forces into Libya to stem the tide of the Turkish intervention. Besides, Turkey’s belligerence has prompted Greece, its perennial rival, to enter the fray, which puts two NATO countries at loggerheads.
No doubt, the Gulf states and Egypt remain stakeholders in Libya. The GNA is an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood, and there is hardly any scope for compromise. Although the GNA’s territorial control has doubled, it still controls only less than one-fifth of Libya, while LNA remains in possession of something like 60 percent of the country, including the oil fields.
Of course, if the Turkish forces seize Sirte and Benghazi, that would phenomenally change the rules of the game in Libya and throughout the region. But it is a bit early to speak of that.
A couple of weeks ago, in full COVID crisis, I walked to the corner store to do some minor shopping. Some senior citizens, lined up according to the latest rules dictated by the pandemic, were standing in line a few feet apart from one another, waiting their turn to make their purchases at the cash register. As I took my place at the end of the line, which now protruded quite deep into the shop proper, an individual wearing a loose training suit brushed past the last few people at the back of the queue, and positioned himself just behind the person who was paying at that moment.
I gave a loud call and drew the attention of the individual to the fact that the line was actually back where I was standing. At that moment, the incensed shopper, a flash of anger in his eyes, darted in my direction: “Who do you think you are to tell me where I should stand?” he hollered, making a few eyes in the store turn in our direction. In vain did I try to make him see that the law, notwithstanding the rules of common sense, decreed that he take his place in line behind me, and a few feet apart from me, at that. The individual, ready to start a fight in defense of his God-given right to pay for his merchandise wherever and whenever he saw fit, wouldn’t relent, and continued arguing until, of his own accord, he decided to furiously leave the shop while uttering a vague threat in my direction.
I wouldn’t have shared this story if this or other similar transgressions didn’t describe the generalized response of the population to the rules taken by the Romanian government to stem the spread of the COVID virus. Moreover, I wouldn’t have used this event as an illustration, if the state of insubordination and affront on the rule of law depicted above, didn’t describe the general social atmosphere at the time of pandemic in Romania.
A lot of ink has been spilled recently decrying the fast rise of authoritarianism in the East. Journalists and representatives of grassroots organizations have rushed to flag up alarm signals in the press, warning the West that the situation in Eastern Europe and Russia, not to mention authoritarian China, was quickly getting out of control. They further caution that dictators from Orban to Putin and Xi Jing Pin, taking advantage of the COVID moment, are insidiously attempting to draw their countries back into the throes of totalitarianism.[1] In this context, the Romanian government has equally been criticized for using the hefty fines issued on its citizens during the pandemic to enrich itself.[2]
I am not defending the rights of the above-named rulers, or those of anyone in a position of authority – of eastern or western extract – to abuse the powers of the state. However, what needs to be specified in this case is that the otherwise well-intentioned journalists who launched these alarm signals, didn’t take into account the generalized corruption engendered by the rule of the rich that seems to characterize the countries they have decided to put into the limelight.
In Romania, for example, a peculiar understanding of democracy, filtered through the lens of private interest and fierce pursuit of economic profit, turned society into a hotbed of lawlessness, disrespect for fellow citizens, and disregard for the most basic of human values. Since the fall of communism in eastern Europe and Russia in the late eighties and early nineties, the wave of bourgeoisification, personal enrichment at the hand of the state, and the enthronement of private property as the most sacrosanct of all democratic values has led to the creation of a nouveau riche class. Replacing the generalized poverty that countries like Romania experienced as a result of insufficient economic development under state communism, this class, dictating the new living standards for a society and smitten with western opulence, bewitched by rags-to-riches success stories, made a joke of the foundational values of democracy, while crying foul at every attempt of the government to curb its unbridled power.
The opening anecdote serves little, in this context, when trying to describe the much more serious deviances that are usually ignored when decrying the loss of democracy in the East. We should include in this category the criminal cutting down of forests and disregard for environmental norms that describe the sorry state of eastern economies, particularly in lands still rich in natural resources, like that of Romania. It is blatant disregard for the law that should equally be blamed for the dramatic increase in road accidents caused by a complete lack of observance of speed regulations, which puts Romania at the top of European Union polls in terms of unsatisfactory road safety conditions.[3]
For these reasons, the word “democracy” doesn’t have the same ring in western as in eastern Europe, and this is not only because of economic disparity. It is because the new ruling class picked and chose whichever “democratic” values it saw fit from the pile thrown at its feet in the early nineties, with devastating consequences for eastern societies. After a disastrous privatization process of state-owned industries, which enriched only a powerful few, democracies in eastern Europe developed following an economic and societal pattern more akin to tribalism than liberal values. This led not only to a concentration of power into the hands of oligarchs, as the Russian example also showed, but to an uber-liberal lifestyle dictated by the rich, which the large majority of the poorer middle class have desperately tried to emulate. As a result, this middle class, subjugated by delusions of grandeur, consider it natural to live and act in ways that mirror the increasingly totalitarian rule of the wealthy, while aspiring to take their place.
It is imperative therefore that we ask what kind of totalitarianism we are discussing in eastern societies. More to the point, what are the historical contexts that allegedly birthed this totalitarianism? And finally, shouldn’t we ponder whether or not it is the totalitarianism of the rich, rather than that of the state, that we should condemn?
Denunciations of totalitarianism in the East should be approached on a comparative basis. We should distinguish between Orban’s rightfully penalized measures of ruling by decree and less stringent regulations meant to curb the unruliness of a class which has placed itself above the law. The Romanian government has been criticized for hefty fines, and rightfully so, but what are weapons of a state if its citizens don’t take them seriously? A few weeks ago, for example, a Romanian woman fined by an officer for not having under her possession a statement of responsibility[4] is reported to have declared that she didn’t care about breaking the law, as she “has enough money” to pay whatever fines she incurs. Such petty incidents show the individualism and private interest that has led to a sharp decline in moral responsibility. The defiance which some citizens showed for the law – both before and during the pandemic – clearly forced the state to up the rather mild fines it had issued during the first weeks of emergency.[5] Weakened by thirty years of oligarchic rule, the authority with which the police have handled the crisis in Romania, and the hefty fines, while not being abusive, have guaranteed the safety of its citizens, even if it took strict regulation to implement this.
The Romans had a powerful expression for the current situation in Romania: Dura lex, sed lex.[6] It is impossible to implement the rule of law when enforcement of strict regulations is immediately equated with totalitarian measures. The United States, Great Britain, and the cohort of western democracies which have set the standard for good governance in the world for the past few hundred years did not attain their ‘civilized’ status by going soft on crime ever since they rose to power on the world stage. Quite the contrary. Why do we cry foul when the East (and China’s case is even more representative here than that of eastern Europe) attempts to build democracy in ways that promote lawfulness and ensure good cohabitation in ways that do not always copy western standards? Should we tax eastern European governments for taking measures that seek to enforce the power of the state in a context in which the law of the jungle has replaced the rule of law? Why should we lend an ear to all these journalists denouncing state measures as attacks on human rights, and a return to totalitarian rule?
As long as eastern governments are not in cahoots with the oligarchic class, the measures taken by the state during the pandemic should not be seen as infringing on human rights, but as a way to battle lawlessness, including that of the continuously rising nouveau riche.
If the pandemic, as some have tried to show, helped reveal ways in which we are all the same, the measures to curb this lawlessness also revealed that petty corruption and disregard for the law are endemic in eastern societies. In this situation, the state is the only power that can curb that corruption, and attempt to preserve the social contract between classes. It is therefore imperative that states do not side with the rich in this conflict, but, while ensuring the return of the rule of law, demonstrate they still deserve the respect of all members of society.
During the pandemic, the Romanian government showed that it had the potential to regain some of the authority it so shamefully lost over three decades of postsocialist transition. The measures it takes from now on will indicate whether the state is indeed committed to offering safe living conditions and equal opportunities for all members of society. Whatever the case, the current situation has shown the nouveau riche that they are equally subjects of the law, and of a state that should drastically attempt to curb their power if that power is putting the others and the state itself in danger.
[1] A BBC article showing the faces of Orban, Putin, and Erdogan below the title Coronavirus: Is pandemic being used for power grab in Europe? is relevant in this regard: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-52308002.
[2] Fox News, whether their reporting is assimiliable to good journalism practices or not, wrote that “Romania makes millions from handing out coronavirus fines” in an eponymously titled article: https://www.foxnews.com/world/romania-millions-coronavirus-fines
[4] The Romanian state made it mandatory until May 15th for all citizens to carry a statement of responsibility meant to restrict unnecessary traffic during the height of the pandemic.
[5] During the first two weeks of state-decreed social distancing and restrictions on freedom of movement, which were ruled by military ordinance, the fines in Romania were much lower than between March 30th and May 15th, when the state of emergency legally ended.
