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Russia

Anti-LGBTI “Propaganda”

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The Russian Fe3026363-inline-s-pride-01deration outlawed openly advocating any speech “propaganda” in relation to LGBTI topics as propaganda that could damage society. In the wake of this neighboring countries now seem to be following suit. Kyrgyzstan has introduced a similar bill in parliament that would criminalize the promotion of homosexuality. Like in Russia, if passed citizens in Kyrgyzstan could face up to a year of imprisonment for advocating LGBTI issues.

Is this a new wave of anti-LGBTI sentiment, evolving into anti gay propaganda, as long as gay people keep it to themselves they are law abiding citizens?

“The sponsors of this bill define ‘non-traditional sexual relations’ as ‘sodomy, lesbianism and other forms of non-traditional sexual behavior,’” according to the organization. “They justify the amendments as necessary ‘to safeguard and protect the traditional family, human, moral, and historical values of Kyrgyz society.’”

Kyrgyzstan already has a hostile climate towards the LGBTI community and with the potential of this ‘draconian’ bill being put into effect, things look darker for the Kyrgyz LGBTI community. According to the bill those convicted of violating the law would face up to six months in prison and a fine of 2,000 to 5,000 som ($36 to $91). For repeat offenders the maximum sentence would be a year in prison and a fine of up to 6,000 som ($110).

In other ex-soviet satellites, the Ukraine considered such a bill but it was not passed, Moldova repealed a ‘gay propaganda’ law last July, a month after it was enacted and a similar bill is pending in Lithuania.

It appears the ex-soviet sphere is in a decline of human rights and equality for LGBTI communities with ever tightening restrictions on their livelihoods and social-inclusion. So far the Russian Federation has met little to no political opposition regards its law which removes certain human rights and freedoms from a minority of its population.

Will the old Soviet Union reunite under an anti-LGBTI “propaganda” law?

 

Did the Russians Dupe Snowden?

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A new book by a writer who has covered eastern Europe for 30 years suggests that Edward Snowden, the NSA leaker, could have been an unwitting agent for the Russian security service, the SVR. The Snowden Operation: Inside the West’s Greatest Intelligence Disaster is a must read if you have any interest in this case at all.

Did Russia Dupe Snowden?

Edward Lucas is senior editor at the Economist and was the only English-language reporter in Prague when the anti-communist revolution swept Czechoslovakia in the late 1980s. He knows how that part of the world works and is particularly knowledgeable about how espionage services operate there. He never produces a smoking gun, but his argument is consistent with the facts and with the known behavior of the SVR and its forerunner the KGB.

There are four ways an intelligence officer (a person who works for the SVR, CIA, MI6 whatever) can recruit an agent (someone who supplies information – note the distinction. James Bond was an intelligence officer not an agent). The acronym is MICE: money, ideology, compromise and ego. You can bribe someone, ask them to “help the cause,” blackmail them with whatever you can find, and/or appeal to their sense of pride (“they don’t appreciate you, but we do.”).

In the case of Snowden, Lucas posits that he was motivated by ideology, but under a “false flag.” A false flag means that a person is recruited by an intelligence service but believes he is helping a different organization or cause. One of the most common ways the KGB did this during the Cold War was recruiting Jews by pretending to be from Israel’s Mossad. False flag recruitments are rather common in the espionage world and are favored by the Russians (and the Soviets before them).

Did the Russians Dupe Snowden?

The hypothesis here is that Snowden was tricked into believing he was helping the cause of open government, personal freedom, Mom and apple pie. In this, he was a “useful idiot” to borrow Lenin’s term.

Lucas then traces timelines and connections to Glenn Greenwald, Jacob Appelbaum and Laura Poitras, illustrating how these individuals could have unwittingly helped the SVR develop Snowden as an agent.

Would a prosecutor get a conviction with this evidence in a court of law? I don’t think so, and to be fair, neither does Lucas. However, the facts as we know them all fit. The conclusion is that you can’t rule out the possibility and this explanation of what happened is more likely to be true than any other.

Global Politics in 2014 – A Look Ahead

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Credit to: Norad
Credit to: Norad

When the new year comes in, optimism is the order of the day – hope that the next 12 months will be better than the last 12. In international relations, that optimism is usually unfounded. The truth is 2014 is probably going to look a lot like 2013 did, and 2013 was a rather middling year. It won’t be as bad as 1939 when Europe began incinerating itself, but it won’t look much like 1989 when communism’s collapse became inevitable. What we’re looking at this year is muddling through some rather tricky issues.

North Korea is a perennial worry, and it has gotten worse since Kim Jong-Un inherited his father’s job as dictator for life. He’s not quite 30, and he has just executed his uncle, who had been his mentor. He has called back numerous diplomats and business people from abroad and purges are underway. What’s scary here is that, even without nuclear weapons, North Korea could easily destroy most of South Korea (one of the world’s most important economies). Any attack would put America and China in the mix, and that won’t end well. Containment is never a popular policy, but it’s the only one we’ve got with North Korea.

Iran is less of a worry, but because certain factions in the west and in Iran would like nothing more than continued tension (or even war), the place is a potential trouble spot. The Iranian nuclear program lies at the heart of the matter, and the truth is that Iran doesn’t have the makings of The Bomb, and probably can’t get the necessary weapons-grade uranium 235 in the next year. The deal made last year that stalls things for the next 6 months is crucial to diffusing this mess. I am betting calmer heads prevail, but that isn’t a guarantee.

The Islamic world is in the midst of a major theological-political struggle between the Sunni variety of the faith (which includes rather nasty people like Al Qaeda) and the Shia variety (Iran, Hezbollah). The difficult thing here for those of us who aren’t Muslims is that we really don’t have a dog in the fight, but it is a fight – people are dying in the Middle East over it. The humanitarian impulse to help is going to bump up against the unpleasant fact that there is almost nothing we can do to resolve the matter one way or another. A similar fight happened in Europe between the Catholics and the Protestants, the Thirty Years War. The Muslims won’t resolve their differences any faster.

Then, there is Pakistan, which part of the Sunni Islamic camp. It is ostensibly an ally of the United States and its intelligence services set up the Taliban in the first place as a way to keep India out of Afghanistan. And remember, Pakistan is where Osama bin Laden hid out for years. With allies like this, America doesn’t need enemies. As the US scales down its troop levels in Afghanistan, Pakistan will start throwing its weight around there a bit more.

Russia is not the problem it was a generation ago, but Vladimir Putin is trying to play great power when, in fact, Russia is a third tier nation at best. The real problem Russia has is a demographic time-bomb; a declining population will restrict its economic and military options in the future, and Putin is fighting a rear guard action with Russian nationalism, homophobia, and the weapons trade (Russia is Syria’s biggest supplier of weapons). Russia is playing games in eastern Europe, and there is just too much that can go wrong.

Of course, these are the obvious flashpoints, and if history teaches us anything, it’s that the biggest troubles don’t come from foreseeable disaster but from complete surprises. Happy 2014 anyway.