| -Caveat Lector-
"James George Jatras, a Washington
D.C.-based attorney and occasional Chronicles contributor, was for many years a
senior policy analyst with the U.S. Senate Republican Leadership. He was in
Moscow last weekend as a guest at the Rodina congress. In his
opinion..." http://www.chroniclesmagazine.org/cgi-bin/newsviews.cgi/Russia/2005/06/14/Dmitry_Rogozin__Rus Tuesday, June 14, 2005 Dmitry Rogozin: Russia’s Man of the
Future? Rogozin accused Putin’s Prime Minister Mikhail Fradkov and the Kremlin’s economic liberals of corruption, of being insufficiently resolute in dealing with the hated oligarchs, and of economic incompetence. “A social government should represent the interests of the majority of the people—and the majority is against those in power,” Rogozin declared. “If the president pursued the same policy, we would say no to him, too.” Seeking to pre-empt those Russians hoping to repeat the scenario of Ukraine’s stage-managed “orange revolution” in the streets of Moscow, Rogozin claimed any such regime change would be “ginger” in color—an obvious allusion to the hair color of Anatoly Chubais, the hugely unpopular “pro-Western, reformist liberal.” James George Jatras, a Washington D.C.-based attorney and occasional Chronicles contributor, was for many years a senior policy analyst with the U.S. Senate Republican Leadership. He was in Moscow last weekend as a guest at the Rodina congress. In his opinion, No one should take lightly Dmitriy Olegovich Rogozin’s prospects for becoming the next president of Russia. To start with, as a politician, he is an extremely attractive and personable candidate. His manner in private is indistinguishable from his appeal to a mass audience, connecting in both contexts as genuine and capable. More importantly, as a statesman, his political persona seems to have real substance behind it. Mr. Rogozin has his hand on the pulse of a broad segment of the Russian population, which, while not wishing to see a return of Marxist-Leninist ideology, are thoroughly disgusted with “democracy” and the “free market” as they have been marketed in debased form in Russia since the collapse of the Soviet system. Rodina’s leftward economic platform should be taken less as an endorsement of dogmatic Soviet collectivism, says Jatras, than a rejection of the oligarchs’ looting of Russia’s national patrimony and the sink-or-swim economic Hobbesianism into which most Russians were plunged without benefit of either property or legal protection. Rogozin and his party take great pains to insist that their Russian patriotic appeal is not chauvinist nor even “nationalist,” and that respect for the identities and traditions of all of Russia’s many ethnic groups is itself part of what makes Russia what it is. The fact the most of the party’s leadership—including Rogozin himself and a large portion of the Party’s public following—are practicing Orthodox Christians, Jatras sees as conclusive evidence that Rodina is not a throwback to communism: At the same time, Mr. Rogozin’s and Rodina’s desire to see the restoration of a strong Russian national state, and his seeking common ground with both Europe and China, points to a troublesome potential development for proponents of U.S.-led “benevolent global hegemony” and architects of the so-called “color revolutions” that are progressively transforming Russia’s strategic space into one dominated by Washington. Following successful U.S- Soros-supported efforts in Georgia in 2003 and Ukraine in 2004, speculation is rife as to who is next, with the leading guesses being Belarus and Kazakhstan. Most observers believe Belarus will be a tough nut to crack, however, with the Lukashenko government having imposed severe restrictions on the NGOs that serve as the essential transmission belts for mobilization of the “pro-Western, reformist, democratic” forces. Kazakhstan seemed to be a more likely bet for the next upheaval, with President Nazerbayev’s government having been relatively open to outside influences. In early June, however, the Kazakh parliament—with an eye to events in Kyrgystan and Uzbekistan, and their own upcoming presidential election in 2006—enacted tight new restrictions on foreign-funded organizations. In foreign affairs Rogozin laments Russia’s effective abdication of its status as a great power in the post-communist period as dangerous not only for Russia but also for the whole of Europe. He thinks that Putin’s failure to revive Russia’s ability to articulate and defend its national interests is even less forgivable than his failure to revive the economy. He believes that Russia’s place should be as a partner with Germany and France in a post-Brussels united Europe from the Atlantic to Alaska. In the aftermath of the failed E.U. Constitution referenda in France and Holland Rogozin has suggested that the EU should be replaced with a “Greater Europe” that would include Russia. Jatras sees this as sufficient to subject Rogozin to systematic vilification by our own media machine: As Americans from various points on the political spectrum consider how our own country can manage to get itself out of the empire business—while adopting instead a realistic strategy against the jihad terror that threatens American and Russia alike—an accession to power by Mr. Rogozin and Rodina would be welcome indeed. Conversely, we can expect the Washington political and media establishment and their oligarch-funded allies to hit Mr. Rogozin and Rodina with a well-orchestrated and amply-funded smear campaign in anticipation of Russia’s 2007 elections to the Duma and the 2008 election to succeed Mr. Putin. Ironically, Jatras concludes, those efforts may fail precisely because there is indeed some real democracy in Russia—hopefully enough that the most popular party and candidate can win. When we first met in Moscow in the summer of 1986, courtesy of our friend Dr. Elena Guskova, Rogozin struck me as a dynamic young Russian patriot whose obvious energy and personal charm could not compensate for the many obstacles he was facing at that time—from the corrupt but powerful Yeltsin establishment to the fact that my late friend General Aleksandr Lebed was seeking support from the same target-audience as Rogozin’s Congress of Russian Communities. At the end of our long conversation Rogozin gave me a magnificent folio edition of the Palekh New Testament adorned with Russian icons, and an assurance that when he becomes President I’ll be invited to his inauguration. After almost a decade it looks like the rain check may yet be cashed after all. Let us please be civil and as always, Caveat Lector. ======================================================================== Archives Available at: http://www.mail-archive.com/ctrl@listserv.aol.com/ <A HREF="">ctrl</A> ======================================================================== To subscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SUBSCRIBE CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] To UNsubscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SIGNOFF CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] Om |
