OH-SO-DEAR EDITORS

Workaday life of the exemplary Baltic democracy or how do Lithuanian media make its living

Popular Norwegian newspaper Aftenposten has published yet another share of revelations of American diplomats, which were publicized by Julian Assange. This time the topic is the secret dispatch that U.S. Ambassador to Lithuania sent to the U.S. State Department, reporting about total corruption that Lithuanian media suffers from. According to the ambassador, corrupted press media has an entire world of Lithuanian politics and business by the throat.

---

Kaczyński' casus. Part VI

The first blood was drawn today. What’s next?

On the 19^th of October Polish civil war stopped being a cold one. The first blood was drawn. 62-year-old taxi driver Ryszard Z. (Polish legislation prohibits publishing criminals’ last names before the court ruling to become effective) broke into the PiS office in Łódź, having shot one of the employees and heavily wounded the second one with a knife. This has never happened in the contemporary Polish history before. First political murder in the post-communist Poland has blown up already electrified Polish society. Most part of Poles has treated this incident in a rather adequate manner.  Every sane person understood even clearer that the PiS-inspired policy of hatred eventually hit those who were imposing it on the country.

Kaczyński' casus

Part V

Poland: yesterday, today, tomorrow.

      

Secret of today’s face-off among the Polish elite lies in the whole of yesterday.

Things that happen in today’s Poland were seemingly impossible to imagine merely a years or two ago. How could have cozy, comfortable and quiet country turned into a battlefield and become an arena for the cold civil war, gradually mutating into a real one? In order to answer these questions we would have to go few decades back in the past.

Kaczyński' casus

Part IV

 

Who are you, pan Kaczyński?

 

                                 

           That’s how brothers looked like in 1962 (scene from the “The Two Who Stole The Moon[1]” motion picture) and 

how they look 45 years after that

 

 

Jarosław Kaczyński, having stepped over the borders of not only Polish but the European political culture as well, created a new model of political behavior, based not on the politically correct depersonalized attitude to the political struggle — as it is common for the countries with firm democratic traditions — but rather on a passionate, deeply personal attitude to the politics (frankly speaking, a lot more characteristic of the Latin America[2] rather than Europe). In order to understand the incentives and algorithms — according to which Kaczyński acts — we have to have a closer look at his person. That is the only way to understand the transformation of a Democrat, fighting against totalitarian communist regime, into the furious populist, fiercely defying the very same democratic values he once used to fight for.

AMERICAN TARTUFFE

PART 4: IRAQI BILLIONS ARE NOT ENOUGH – WE NEED A TRILLION

Whom did Dick Cheney please, frying out money for a knowingly useless ABM project?

CHENEY'S PRIVY MOTTO: START A WAR, AND MAKE BIG MONEY

In this part of our research, we'll try to analyze the correlation between the spheres of Dick Cheney's business interests and US foreign policy initiatives. In fact, the famous phrase "What is good for General Motors is good for America" has converted into a practical motto of Dick Cheney: "What is good for Halliburton, is good for the globe".

The copyright for the original pronouncement belongs to GM's former president Charles Wilson. In January 1953, Dwight Eisenhower nominated him for Defense Secretary. The Senate Committee on Military Affairs asked the renowned company boss to tell which interests – national or corporate – he regards as a priority. "I've got used to believe that what is good for GM is good for the nation, and vice versa. In my view, it's the same", Wilson confessed. Being impressed with his sincerity, the Committee authorized his nomination, and he continued to serve as Defense Secretary until 1957. During his tenure, he was never exposed of lobbying his firm by promoting exclusive contracts for GM or using his business connections in another way. Dick Cheney's behavior has been strikingly different.

Definitely, Mr. Cheney can explain that the coincidence of Halliburton's business activity with the State Dept's foreign policy initiatives was just accidental. The public does not possess hard evidence of deliberate spawning crisis spots in various regions of the globe for particular corporate needs. Nobody has managed to record his talk with Condy Rice in which the VP would say, "Let's start a war in Iraq and make a lot of money".

Part 3: GREED UNLIMITED

Why does the US justice so fear to touch VP Cheney's pocket firm?


ON FBI'S HOOK


Since 2004, the Federal bureau of Investigations had been receiving signals on financial swindle, committed by Halliburton's top managers. Bunnatine Greenhouse, a former employee of the corporation – where she was responsible for distribution of the Corps of Engineers' orders – underwent several interrogations. In late October 2008, Ms. Greenhouse confessed that the corporation had received multi-billion contracts for reconstruction of Iraqi oil industry under non-bid conditions, i.e. contrary to the US legislation, and agreed to cooperate with the investigation. "The Bureau's officers interrogated the witness on all major contracts of the company and involvement of top state officials", said Ms. Greenhouse's lawyer Michael Cohn.


According to Ms. Greenhouse's testimony, she repeatedly addressed the company's leadership, asking why Halliburton enjoys privileges in distribution of Pentagon's orders. She received no clear answer, but her boss isolated her from the decision room.

AMERICAN TARTUFFE

Part 2: HALLIBURTON'S APPETITES

The "great and terrible" VP appears to be a mere corruptionist

DICK CHENEY'S PRIVATE JAILS

Privatization of the security apparatus, involved in military campaigns, was obviously not enough for Dick Cheney in his effort to establish his private "state in the state". He has reportedly multiplied his wealth and influence also by means of privatization of penitentiary institutions.

On November 18, 2008 in Houston, the Federal Grand Jury recognized criminal intent in the activities of VP Dick Cheney and ex-General Attorney Alberto Gonzalez. This conclusion was made from analysis of the materials, provided by the attorney of Willacy County in Rio Grande Valley, adjacent to the US-Mexican border. According to the verdict, published by Reuters, the jury admitted that Dick Cheney "derived profit from infringement on human rights and liberties of convicts".

The "money trace", leading to Dick Cheney, surfaced in his ownership of stakes in Vanguard Group and Geo, the two private companies managing major private penitentiaries of Texas. Ex-Attorney General Gonzalez was accused of "impeding investigation of abuse of power" in the jails, particularly of physical mistreatment of convicts. VP's office was reluctant to comment. Megan Mitchell, Cheney's spokesperson, claimed she was not ready to comment on "unknown facts".

AMERICAN TARTUFFE

Part 1: privatization of war

Blackwater's bloody guards: Dick Cheney's private army

BUSH AND CHENEY: ORGON AND TARTUFFE

You all probably remember the boot, hurled at George W. Bush by an Iraqi journalist, symbolically summarizing the net result of his eight-year rule. US mass media didn't spare black paint in their coverage of Bush administration activity. They’ve accused it of economic errors, ideological obscurantism and military inefficiency that have deprived America of moral leadership in international policy and made Washington a subject of hate and contempt in the view of the majority of the world's population.

These accusations are understandable but often largely simplistic. Since George W. Bush's first election campaign when he amused the globe with utter illiteracy not only in politics but even in geography, it has been obvious that this person was incapable for qualified decision-making.

Oscar Wilde, a master of paradox, wrote that only a superficial observer does not judge upon an individual's inner world by his appearance. Looking at Mr. Bush's face, one could hardly believe that this personality could be overwhelmed with some kind of idea. Concentration on ideas is a prerogative of a hero – a role for which Mr. Bush is an improper contender. In a Russian XIX-century provincial theater, such a person would rather be granted the role of a village ninny.

However, simplistic mind is typical not only for villagers. The type of a "parlor booby" is common for classical realistic literature, and sometimes contrasted to a witty peasant.