Sep 042014
 

It appears that France decided to suspend delivery of the first of two Mistral-class helicopter assault ships that they have been building for Russia.

It will cost the French an awful lot of money. Still, this is the right thing to do. The last thing the West should provide to Putin’s Russia is more firepower. On the other hand, NATO should probably consider stepping in and purchasing these ships from France. Come to think of it, Canada could use the capability to effectively patrol its oceans (which is currently, for all practical intents and purposes, is outsourced to the United States).

 Posted by at 10:43 am
Aug 282014
 

There is no other way of describing it: Russia now engages in open aggression against Ukraine. Whatever one’s thoughts are about Ukrainian nationalism or the wisdom of breaking up the territory of the old Russian empire into semi-viable successor states, such open aggression should be condemned without reservation. Russia being a nuclear superpower, Puting can do whatever the hell he wants, but that doesn’t mean that we should stay silent.

NATO releases satellite imagery showing Russian combat troops inside Ukraine

Curiously, the NATO Web site where these pictures were published is intermittently unavailable. Given this morning’s breaking news about coordinated cyberattacks originating from Russia and aimed at US banks, I would not be surprised if NATO’s Web site itself were itself subjected to something like a DoS attack by Russia, which might explain the intermittent outages.

 Posted by at 1:13 pm
Aug 272014
 

Our Russian friends apparently lack accurate maps, as they accidentally cross the border into Ukraine every so often. No harm intended, I am sure. Just to make sure it does not happen again, here is a helpful map, courtesy of Canada’s NATO delegation, tweeted by them (and retweeted by thousands of others) earlier today:

notrussia

 Posted by at 6:06 pm
Aug 152014
 

The other day, I was watching The Tramp and the Dictator, a documentary about Charlie Chaplin’s 1940 film, The Great Dictator, in which I came across this gem:

The speaker is Rep. Martin Dies from Texas, who later became known as the founder of the infamous House Committee Investigating Un-American Activities (initially nicknamed the Dies committee). A month earlier, Mr. Dies also presented his views to a radio audience.

Unfortunately, the words uttered by some anti-immigration politicians and activists today in the United States are little different from the words uttered nearly 80 years ago by Mr. Dies.

 Posted by at 7:38 pm
Aug 072014
 

I know, I know. Non-existent weapons of mass destruction. The War on Terror used to “rendition” innocent people to tyrannical third countries for “enhanced interrogation”. The TSA sniffing travelers’ shoes at American and select foreign airports. Waterboarding. Guantanamo. And behind it all, American exceptionalism.

All of these are valid points. The record of the “last remaining superpower” has been far from impeccable. Sometimes they go to far. Sometimes they succumb to some idiotic ideology. Sometimes they place profit ahead of people’s rights. Sometimes, their behavior on the world scene is governed not by altruism but by petty domestic politics.

All of that is true. Still… When I look at the end result, I still prefer Pax Americana over any of the possible alternatives. Much prefer. (What would those alternatives be anyway? Pax EuropaePax SovieticaPax Islamica? Pax ChristianaPax Sinensis?) When I look around the world today, at places like Ukraine. Iraq. Syria. The Gaza strip. Egypt. Libya. Mali. Somalia. Iran. Afghanistan. I much prefer the peace imposed by the United States, even if it is done by imperial decree. Even if it means more missteps and misdeeds.

Tonight, as he announced that he authorized the United States military conduct air strikes in Iraq to protect refugees from ISIS/ISIL, President Obama said, among other things, the following words: “America has made the world a more secure and prosperous place.”

And it has. Even after all the missteps, all the misdeeds, all the wrongdoings are accounted for. Even after I accept that Iraq was their mess to begin with, they broke the place, the least they can do is to fix it. Moreover, the United States is probably the only major power in the history of the world that has repeatedly deployed its might and risked the lives of members of its military, not to serve its own imperial interests but to help fix a broken world.

 Posted by at 10:42 pm
Aug 052014
 

In the 1980s there was a joke I heard on the streets of Budapest. It was in the form of an official-sounding announcement: “In Soviet Union is no illiteracy… on written record.”

Well, there is no racism in Hungary either. At least not on the record. Everything that happens, happens for a sound, sensible reason. When Hungary’s Minister of Human Resources announces that there was no Roma Holocaust in Hungary, as Hungarian Roma were only deported from Austrian territory, he of course speaks the gospel truth. When the third largest city in Hungary begins a systematic eviction of mainly Roma residents, it is just an eminently reasonable attempt to clean up a bad, run-down part of town. And when a state-sponsored film festival in the same city declines to show films on the subject of the Roma, it is an entirely logical decision, aimed at avoiding controversy just before municipal elections.

Everything is based on sound reasoning, everything makes perfect sense. Just as it was entirely reasonable when a small town mayor in Hungary this weekend presided over a symbolic hanging of an effigy of Benjamin Netanyahu, in protest against the “Freemason Jewish terror state’s efforts to rule the world.” No, there is no racism in Hungary. How could there be?

 Posted by at 5:40 pm
Aug 052014
 

I am reading posts on Facebook and elsewhere, using heated language to advocate either the Israeli or the Palestinian cause in the current conflict.

I don’t think calling Israel’s actions “mass murder” is any more helpful than calling Hamas “terrorists”. They are both inflammatory terms that are designed to create the impression of no moral ambiguity (i.e., whichever side happens to be your side, they will be “right” and the other side will be “wrong”) in what is really in many ways a morally ambiguous situation.

On that front, I am equally appalled by Israel’s apparent indifference to the Palestinian civilian death count and by Hamas’s apparent determination to harm anyone on the other side of the Gaza border so long as it is a Jew. But while moral outrage may be used to fire up the troops, wars are not about moral outrage. They are about tangible things such as land or resources.

Fact: Israel’s physical security demands that Israel do not relinquish military control over Palestinian territories. Hence, an independent Palestinian state, potentially hostile to Israel, is unacceptable.

Fact: Israel’s water security also demands control over the resources of the West Bank. Once again, this means that an independent Palestinian state, potentially hostile to Israel, is unacceptable.

Fact: Israel defines itself as an ethnic/religious Jewish state, but it also maintains the institutions of a representative liberal democracy. Thus, its very existence as a Jewish state hinges on it maintaining a majority Jewish population. There are already concerns voiced about the higher rate of population growth among Arab Israelis. Annexation of Palestinian territories would create an instant Arab majority in Israel; maintaining a Jewish state would then necessarily mean giving up on the notion of democracy, replacing it instead with an apartheid regime, which is clearly abhorrent to most Israelis. Hence, annexing Palestinian territories is an option that, for Israel, is unacceptable.

Which leads to the sad conclusion that politically for Israel, the least undesirable of all possible options is the status quo. No Palestinian state but no outright annexation either, and if it keeps a few million Palestinians forever in limbo, well, that’s just too bad. And they’ll continue to use their military to ensure that the occupied territories never get too far out of hand, never pose an existential security risk to Israel.

Of course I’d argue that the status quo itself will eventually become unacceptable to Israel in the long run, but I am not sure what that means other than the fact that at that time, Israel will have run out of options.

Mind you, Israel could give up on the idea of being a sovereign Jewish ethnic/religious nation state and instead, accept the notion of a Jewish-Arab federal republic. Could it work, especially considering the enmity between Jews and Palestinians after decades of struggle (and I am of course just counting the time since the establishment of the modern state of Israel)? Unlikely. Yet even this unlikely option may be preferable to no option at all, as that would ultimately lead to the destruction of the state of Israel, the loss of countless Jewish lives, and a new diaspora for whom the words, “L’Shana Ha’ba’a b’Yerushalayim” would once again represent an unattainable dream.

 Posted by at 12:48 am
Aug 012014
 

A few days ago, Mr. Viktor Orban (hey, it’s not my fault that we share a first name), Hungary’s prime minister, gave a speech in a Transylvanian town. In this speech, he declared his intent to create an “illiberal” Hungary. His role models: Turkey, China and Russia. No wonder the speech raised alarm bells throughout the Western media, including the not exactly left-wing Wall Street Journal. The Huffington Post described it as a headline that could have come straight from a European version of The Onion.

While it is clear that this speech was primarily intended for consumption by his followers, among whom Orban’s anti-West, anti-Brussels, anti-capitalist, xenophobic populism resonates, Orban is not stupid, and he is choosing his words carefully. The fact that he used this particular phrase makes it clear that his struggle is about more than just preventing Hungary from becoming a “colony” of the EU. He really does want to tear down all the remaining checks and balances of a liberal democracy, in order to enjoy unconstrained power.

In light of this, while others describe Orban’s plans the “Putinization” of Hungary, Newsweek was perhaps not unjustified in borrowing a description of Mr. Orban from the Hungarian left-wing daily Népszabadság: “Hungary’s Mussolini”.

 Posted by at 12:47 am
Jul 252014
 

The other day, responding to an e-mail in which I expressed my strong disapproval of the handling of the MH17 disaster by Putin’s government, someone suggested that I hate the Russians.

I most certainly do not. If anything, the contrary is true. I admire Russian culture, Russian literature, Russian music (ever listened to Tchaikovsky’s first piano concerto? Or Shostakovich’s “Leningrad” symphony?) And I will always be amazed by the steadfast, grim determination of the Russian people as they repelled Hitler’s horrific aggression during the Great Patriotic War.

No, my comments were in reference to the actions of Mr. Putin’s government, which I do not confuse with “the Russians”. Despite the fact that apparently, a majority of Russians (for now) support Mr. Putin, there are many who do not. And a perfect, beautiful example of this came to light earlier today, when the opposition Russian newspaper (itself an endangered species) published the following cover page:

Looking at this cover, I don’t think that it is naive to place faith in the fundamental goodness and decency of “the Russians” even as we remain deeply critical of Putin’s thuggish behavior. This is especially true considering the personal risk that Novaya Gazeta’s journalists must face; four of them were murdered in recent years.

 Posted by at 11:20 pm
Jul 192014
 

To sum up:

  • MH17 was shot down over a region of Ukraine controlled by pro-Russian separatists.
  • Said separatists have shot down several Ukrainian military aircraft in recent weeks, including an AN-26 transport aircraft.
  • Said separatists recently bragged about having acquired a powerful truck-mounted anti-aircraft missile battery.
  • Said separatists posted publicly on social media, complete with eyewitness video, about having shot down another AN-26 at the time when MH17 crashed, and in the same region.
  • The posts came from a source that was accepted as credible in the past, and were widely circulated in Russian media.
  • The posts were removed a few hours after it became clear that the aircraft in question was in fact a civilian airliner.
  • The Ukrainian government published intercepted cellular telephone calls, in which alleged separatist leaders, and possibly their Russian contacts, were discussing the incident. Although the source (Ukraine) is not impartial, no reason was presented so far to question the authenticity of the intercepts.

In light of all these facts, even if the black boxes can never be analyzed, even if the wreckage has been disturbed, even if the site has been looted, even if no investigators are allowed on the scene, I think that the basic conclusion is rock solid: MH17 was shot down by pro-Russian separatists who mistook it for a Ukrainian military airplane, and who were possibly not aware of the fact that international air traffic was allowed to fly over the disputed region at altitudes greater than 32,000 feet.

The only real questions that remain, in my opinion, concern the extent of Russia’s involvement. Where did the missile come from? Was it captured by the separatists themselves or was it provided by Russia? Who operated the missile? Was it Ukrainian rebels who may have received relevant training while serving in the military, or was it personnel provided by Russia?

From The Times of London.

The answers to these questions determine the degree of Mr. Putin’s culpability.

The Ukrainians also presented a video, showing the alleged missile truck, with one of four missiles missing, en route to Russia. There were also reports according to which the airplanes black boxes were found and have since been removed to Russia. If true, these facts only increase the culpability of Mr. Putin’s government.

Meanwhile, Russia’s propaganda machine is now in high gear, full of insinuations, including these:

  • Ukrainian air defense forces were tracking MH17. (Of course they were. That’s what air defense forces are supposed to do. I know… I served in one of them 33 years ago as an unhappy conscript, trained as a radar operator.)
  • Ukraine is responsible for a crime that happened over her territory. (Except when said territory is controlled by separatists who are supported, overtly and covertly, by a foreign government.)
  • MH17 earlier flew near Mr. Putin’s presidential airplane, which had similar markings, and NATO may have been trying to murder the Russian president. (Mr. Putin’s airplane never entered Ukrainian airspace. NATO does not usually miss its target by several hundred miles. And the actual locations of civilian aircraft in European airspace are available to anyone with a Web browser, which includes NATO officers but not necessarily ragtag paramilitaries in the fields of eastern Ukraine.)

So there. Tensions are never a good thing, especially with a nuclear superpower like Russia, but I nonetheless believe that at the very least, Mr. Putin should be held accountable for being an accomplice in a crime against humanity.

 Posted by at 4:45 pm
Jul 172014
 

Here is the Google Maps location of the last ADS-B coordinate transmitted by MH17:

And here is a (since deleted) social media release by Igor Ivanovich Strelkov, commander of the separatist Donbass People’s militia:

The underlined text reads, in English (slightly edited Google translation):

In the area Torrez just downed plane An-26, lying somewhere in the mine “Progress.” As we warned – do not fly in “our sky.” And here is the video confirmation of the “birdfall.”

Bravo, murderers. I hope you are proud. And congratulations are also due to Mr. Putin; after all, if you give a lit match to a child, you cannot really disclaim responsibility when the house burns down.

 Posted by at 3:10 pm
Jul 172014
 

Malaysian airlines confirms that it lost contact with MH17, a scheduled flight from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur.

According to Interfax, the flight went down near the Ukrainian-Russian border. As this is a known conflict zone, it raises the possibility of foul play, especially considering that a few days ago, Ukraine lost a cargo plane and it may have been shot down by Russia.

On the other hand, whatever the cause, it cannot be good news for Boeing either.

 Posted by at 11:50 am
Jun 152014
 

Freedom House is not happy about Hungary.

According to their latest report, Hungary remains a consolidated democracy, but only barely. The threshold index value is 3.00; Hungary slid from 1.96 in 2005 to 2.96 in 2014. (A lower value means a better democracy score.)

Opponents of Orban’s increasingly autocratic regime point at this report as proof that Orban’s government is undemocratic, or worse. They have a point.

But… the trend did not begin in 2010, when Mr. Orban was elected. Hungary’s index was already 2.39 in 2010. The trend is clearly long term, transcending governments.

Freedom House Democracy Score - Hungary

Freedom House Democracy Score – Hungary

No, it is Hungary as a whole, the country that is turning its back to democracy, listening to populists blaming everything on Brussels; or to radical populists, blaming everything on “international financiers”; or to extremist populists who have no use for such euphemisms and just blame everything openly on the Jews. Or the “liberal-bolsheviks”. Or America (but pointedly NOT blaming Barack Obama; after all, nothing a black man does can be consequential. No, it’s Joe Biden that they seem to be fixated on.)

What a bunch of… Aw, nevermind.

 Posted by at 9:27 am
May 222014
 

Arguably America’s most prestigious (but certainly the oldest; it’ll turn 150 next year) weekly newsmagazine, The Nation, published a lengthy article titled Hungary and the End of Politics. The topic is the state of politics in Hungary in view of the recent electoral victory of the ruling FIDESZ party and the authoritarian tendencies of said party and its leader, Viktor Orban.

Beyond describing the steps taken by Orban’s government in the last four years to solidify and entrench itself by building a de facto one-party state, the lengthy article (12 printed pages, as printed from the Web site) also puts Hungary’s political transformation into a European and geopolitical context.

Orban's soccer academy in his birthplace of Felcsút, Hungary. The marker indicates the location of Mr. Orban's residence.

Soccer academy in Orban’s birthplace of Felcsút, Hungary. Marker indicates Orban’s residence.

If I have any complaints about the article, it’s that it does not go far enough. For instance, it did not even mention Orban’s pet project, a soccer “academy”, complete with multiple regulation-size soccer fields and a new $17 million stadium with a capacity of 4000, built literally just a few yards from the home of Mr. Orban in his birthplace, a village of only 1800 inhabitants. Or the recent de facto nationalization of tobacco shops which eliminated the livelihood of scores of small tobacconist businesses, while handing these concessions to loyal FIDESZ supporters. Or implementing a degree of central control over the education system that was unheard of even under communism, where school principals no longer have the authority over petty cash to purchase extra chalk or a spare lightbulb.

No doubt this article, like most others published in the Western press, will be met with a well-organized attempt to discredit it. Its minor inaccuracies (e.g., it mentions Hungary’s nuclear power plants, whereas there is only one) will be portrayed as evidence of journalistic ignorance. Its overall tone will be attributed to the systematic “anti-Hungarian” efforts of liberals (or Jews!) bent on destroying Hungarian nationhood.

Nonetheless, no matter how FIDESZ’s loyal supporters manage to fool themselves, it does not change the fact that under the guise of anti-communism and Christian nation-building, a thoroughly corrupt, oligarchic autocracy is being constructed in the heart of Europe. Twenty-five years ago, Hungarians were proud to live in the “merriest of barracks”, the most liberal state behind the Iron Curtain, which found itself at the forefront of democratic transition as the Soviet empire collapsed. Today, all I can hope for is that Hungary’s example will not be followed by other European nations.

 Posted by at 7:33 pm
Apr 272014
 

Someone called it “thinly veiled racism” but I think it is blatant and overt racism, this flyer that was circulated in Brampton, Ontario in the past few days.

immflyer

Many prominent Canadians spoke up against this flyer, and I agree with them wholeheartedly. As Justin Trudeau observed, Canada is stronger not despite the country’s diversity but because of it.

That said, some are calling for prosecution, alluding to Canada’s hate speech laws. To these people, I say, back off. You cannot suppress hatred with oppression. Or to put it in other words, we must prevail on the basis of the strength of our ideas, not the strength of our police force.

 Posted by at 8:30 am
Apr 162014
 

Am I the only one who feels that the way the situation is escalating in Ukraine is eerily reminiscent of 1980s vintage TV movies depicting the events leading up to WW3?

Probably not.

And of course it’s purely symbolic, but I keep reminding myself that this year is the 100th anniversary of the beginning of The War to End All Wars…

 Posted by at 7:00 pm
Apr 082014
 

Quebec-CanadaYesterday, the good citizens of Quebec sent a clear message to the sovereignist Parti Quebecois: they said no to a possible referendum, and no to the divisive politics of the PQ’s proposed “charter of values”.

The day before yesterday, the good citizens of Hungary sent a clear message to the “Viktator”, Hungary’s autocratic Prime Minister Viktor Orban, about his nationalist politics, disastrous “unconventional” economic policies, and systematic abuse of his two-thirds constitutional supermajority to weaken Hungary’s fledgling democratic institutions. “More please,” was the message as voters gave Mr. Orban another strong mandate, possibly another supermajority.

What can I say? Je suis reconnaissant d’être Canadien. Even if my knowledge of French is shamefully limited.

 Posted by at 10:08 pm
Mar 302014
 

People or, for that matter, nation states are known by the company they keep.

Here is the list of nations that supported Russia in the recent UN General Assembly vote on the matter of Russia’s occupation of the Crimean peninsula:

  1. Armenia
  2. Belarus
  3. Bolivia
  4. Cuba
  5. North Korea
  6. Nicaragua
  7. Sudan
  8. Syria
  9. Venezuela
  10. Zimbabwe

All leading champions of human rights, freedom and democratic values, I see.

 Posted by at 10:57 am
Mar 162014
 

Is history thumbing its nose at us? The parallels between the events unfolding between Russia and Ukraine today vs. Germany and Czechoslovakia in the 1930s are unmistakable.

No, I am not going to evoke the hyperbole, comparing Putin to Hitler. (I’ll leave it to Russian propagandists to talk about “fascists” taking over Ukraine.)

But the actual events are another matter.

Consider the parallels between the 1936 Berlin olympics and Sochi.

The parallels between the Third Reich’s prosecution of homosexuals and Russia’s.

The parallels between the Crimea and the Sudetenland.

The parallels between German cries of outrage about the maltreatment of ethnic Germans abroad, and Russia’s.

The parallels between a post WWI Germany, destined to be a Great Power but humiliated by defeat and a vindictive peace treaty, and Russia, destined to be a superpower but humiliated by the collapse of its Soviet empire and encroachment by NATO, Russia’s former arch-enemy.

The analogy is not perfect. Nonetheless we better smarten up before it’s too late. Ironically, the “war to end all wars” started exactly 100 years ago this year… and far from being a deliberate war, it broke out as a result of a series of deadly miscalculations, which in the end caused the deaths of tens of millions, the end of an unprecedented half century of prosperity, the collapse of the existing world order, and guaranteed instability and upheaval (not to mention another, even more devastating World War) in the coming decades.

I spent the first 50+ years of my life in peace and prosperity. I want to live out the rest of my (hopefully long) natural life the same way, not become a civilian casualty of a war more devastating than anything in history.

 Posted by at 6:41 pm