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Bush, Putin point out mutual faults while blind to own
munaeem | 02 July, 2007 11:03
MIAMI, FL, USA -- How can Presidents George W. Bush and Vladimir Putin be expected to see each other's viewpoints when they are blind to the fact that each is guilty of the same faults as he accuses the other of displaying?
The US and Russian leaders' day-long July 1 session in Kennebunkport, ME, brings together two men who share a common proclivity for belligerent conduct and personal power aggrandizement. These traits have diminished their stature in the eyes of both their domestic and international critics, yet they do not acknowledge error and have stubbornly pursued their goals.
Indeed, both Bush and Putin have proved absolutely relentless in the prosecution of their respective wars. Bush insists on intensifying the Iraq war even as key republican senators turn against him, and polls show the overwhelming majority of the public wants "out." As for Putin's war in Chechnya, Lev Ponomarev, of the For Human Rights organization, once told CDI Russia Weekly: "Only Putin and his generals want to continue the war."
Both leaders have blamed their troubles on "terrorists," yet both have been accused of human rights violations of their own that qualify them for that epithet. Neither finds himself guilty of misjudgment or error.
Last March, the Council of Europe's human rights chief, Thomas Hammarberg, said Russian-backed authorities in Chechnya were guilty of "a real widespread pattern of serious ill-treatment and many cases of torture against those who have been arrested." Similarly, Amnesty International called for the closure of the US detention center at Guantanamo Bay. The human rights group also called for an end to the Central Intelligence Agency's "extraordinary renditions."
Putin's regime has also been accused of kidnappings and the murder of political enemies. A year ago, the Duma enacted a Kremlin-sponsored bill to allow the assassination of "enemies of the Russian regime" on foreign soil. In an interview published in the January 29 issue of the The New Yorker magazine, Boris Berezovsky, an anti-Putin billionaire, reminded: "This guy [Putin] is a KGB guy ... [He] issues a law allowing the Russians to kill opponents abroad. So, they kill opponents abroad." The sensational murder of former KGB agent Alexander Litvinenko with a lethal dose of radioactive polonium-210 could be rationalized by this statute.
What's more, since Putin took power in 1999, the magazine noted, 13 Russian journalists have been murdered, yet not one of the assassins has been brought to justice. The shade of Anna Politkovskaya, a Putin critic on the staff of the liberal Novaya Gazeta, will certainly haunt the Bush-Putin sessions. She was murdered last October 7, 2006 in the lobby of her Moscow apartment building by a killer who fired three bullets into her chest and a "control shot" to the head. Her "crime" apparently was documenting torture by forces loyal to Chechnya's pro-Russian Prime Minister Ramzan Kadyrov.
For Putin, a former KGB career service officer, not to find the killers of any of the journalists raises questions about his complicity. Similarly, the failure of America's Federal Bureau of Investigations to find the source of anthrax-laced letters mailed from Fort Detrick, MD, to two opposition senators, has also raised questions about possible Bush administration involvement. Five persons were killed and the US government shut down, yet, in nearly six years, the perpetrators have not been found.
The two heads of state both seek aggrandizement of political power. Putin is consolidating his by appointing governors, by jailing business opponents, and seizing control of all major television outlets. Putin allows only a few small-circulation opposition newspapers to publish, and only if they do not mention the C----- word.
In the US, civil libertarians are deeply troubled over the powers President Bush has assumed as commander in chief of the military, and by his refusal to respond to congressional demands for information about his illegal spying on US citizens. Bush is also asserting that, in the event of a "national emergency," he can assume control of all branches of government, including Congress and the courts.
While so engaged, the Bush administration has slammed Russia for backtracking on democracy, which a top Putin aide dismissed as "groundless." It will be nothing short of a marvel if the two presidents reach agreement on such issues as Kosovo and the Europe-based "missile defense system" when both are blind to the qualities they share with each other. They are much more alike than they know.
Sherwood Ross is an American Columnist and Magazine Writer. He can be reached at sherwoodr1@yahoo.com.
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