NYT's Report on Crowdfunding for Novorossiya: Raising the Steel Curtain Back Up in the Western Mind

Jo Becker and Steven Lee Myers are back at work grubbing up their phony "Deep Throat" investigative reporting directed at Russia. This morning's offering has to do efforts by Novorossiya's supporters to raise money online, "Russian Groups Crowdfund the War in Ukraine." The lifeless opening three paragraphs read as follows:

WASHINGTON — The Novorossiya Humanitarian Battalion boasts on its website that it provided funds to buy a pair of binoculars used by rebels in eastern Ukraine to spot and destroy an armored vehicle. Another group, Save the Donbass, solicits donations using a photograph of a mortar shell inscribed with its web address and the names of donors. Yet another, Veche, states that its mission is to “create modern, combat-ready” military units fighting Ukraine’s central government. 

These organizations are part of an online campaign that is brazenly raising money for the war in eastern Ukraine, using common tactics that have at least tacit support from the government of President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia. Although they often portray their mission as humanitarian, most of the groups explicitly endorse the armed insurgency and vow to help equip forces in the two regions at the center of the fighting, Donetsk and Luhansk.

An examination by The New York Times of the groups’ websites, social media postings and other records found more than a dozen groups in Russia that are raising money for the separatists, aiding a conflict that has killed more than 6,400 people and plunged Russia’s relations with the West to depths not seen since the Cold War.

It is a lengthy, soporific story, complete with online "smoking gun" screen-shots, that is bereft of the obvious: There is a lot of public support for Ukraine's pro-Russian rebels, something revealed in the recent Pew survey (Michael Gordon, "Survey Points to Challenges NATO Faces Over Russia"):

The findings on Russians’ attitudes are likely to be disappointing for NATO supporters. 

Western officials have calculated that economic sanctions will eventually erode Russian support for Mr. Putin’s decision to intervene in eastern Ukraine, but he has remained extremely popular by riding a wave of nationalism and controlling much of the news media. Most Russians are unhappy with the state of the economy, but they tend to blame not Mr. Putin but the drop in oil prices and the West’s efforts to punish Russia. 

Eighty-eight percent of Russians said they had confidence in Mr. Putin to do the right thing on international affairs, the highest rating since Pew started taking polls on the question in 2003. 

“The Ukrainian situation continues to be very good for Vladimir Putin with his own people,” Mr. Stokes said. “The Russians feel the pain of the economy, but they blame it on the West, not on Putin.”

I wish Becker and Myers would have included links to Strelkov's web site. I would make a donation. Instead, this is what we get:

The Western sanctions lists, for their part, have not kept up with the groups’ ever-changing names. Mr. Strelkov’s Novorossiya Movement, for instance, stopped soliciting funds after the European Union placed sanctions on it in February. Instead, it asked that the funds be sent to a related group, not blacklisted, called Global Initiatives, run by the movement’s chief of staff and chaired by Mr. Strelkov. 

In early May, it morphed yet again, redirecting funds to yet another related group, ANO KNB. Later in the month, a group identified by the Novorossiya Movement as its partner, Strelkov Info, wrote that because of constant blocking of its accounts, “we’ve decided to not post them in places open to all”; donors could send an email “to find out transfer details.”

One interesting aspect of the Becker and Myers piece is its description of the virtual-payment company QIWI (a blue QIWI terminal is pictured above, photo by James Hill for NYT):

But the widespread use of QIWI has created potential risks for its partner, Visa. Nearly all the fund-raising groups solicit donations through QIWI, a virtual payment company founded in 2004 and later incorporated, like many Russian companies, in Cyprus. QIWI provides consumers in Russia — and increasingly other countries — with a variety of ways to make payments online or through a network of tens of thousands of terminals that act like reverse A.T.M.s, allowing users to deposit cash and then pay participating vendors.

Users can also move money to individuals — or charitable organizations — as long as they have accounts linked to working telephone numbers. Its partnership with Visa, begun in 2012, allows customers to use a QIWI-Visa credit card to pay vendors outside QIWI’s network. 

The system has become wildly popular, used by 17 million Russians, but it has also skirted legal trouble. The company’s terminals and credit cards — along with the failure to require identification for transactions, as demanded by Russian law since last year — can be easily exploited to transfer proceeds from illicit activities, from drug dealing to tax evasion.

Once the again the Gray Lady is pumping out the column inches, making it appear as if she is documenting massive Russian corruption, and in the end there is really nothing much there.

It is illuminating in one aspect though. We are witnessing the erection of another steel curtain in the Western mind.

Voting in Donbass a Success, U.S. Cries Foul

Much to the chagrin of the junta in Kiev and their backers in Western capitals, Sunday's referendum in Donetsk and Luhansk on greater autonomy from the coup government, despite a few instances, one fatal, of junta-initiated criminal violence, went well, really better than anticipated. Andrew Kramer and Alan Cowell report this morning in "Kiev Condemns Separatist Vote as Russia Offers Modest Support":

In Donetsk, the chairman of the central election committee of the separatist government, Roman Lyagin, said the preliminary results showed that “about 90 percent” of voters supported regional autonomy, but he added that a final count would take about a week because of difficulties in collecting ballots. The preliminary count, he told journalists, showed 89.07 percent in favor of self-rule and 10.19 percent opposed, while just under one percent of the ballots were filled out incorrectly or damaged.

In Luhansk, a deputy director of the election committee told the Russian news agency Interfax that 95.98 percent of voters wanted self-rule for the region and that turnout was 81 percent.

The first reports filed yesterday by Kramer were overwhelmingly positive. Then the final story posted shifted to accentuate the negative, "Ukraine Vote on Separation Held in Chaos." What that headline does not clarify is that the chaos, what there was of it, was created by the Ukrainian national guard. The last we time we heard from them they were terrorizing with tanks and APCs peaceful parade-goers in Mariupol on Friday.

Kramer goes out of his way to create the impression that significant numbers, possibly a majority, of voters in eastern Ukraine stayed home rather than participate in Sunday's referendum. This is based on the oft-repeated results of a recent Pew poll:

The provinces of Donetsk and Luhansk are predominantly Russian-speaking rather than Ukrainian-speaking, and in past elections they have tended to back pro-Russian politicians. But that does not mean that most people there want to secede from Ukraine. A poll by the Pew Research Center released this month indicated that 70 percent of respondents in eastern Ukraine favored keeping the country united, while only 18 percent favored secession; the remainder were undecided. 

The referendums demonstrated that there was substantial popular support for the pro-Russian separatists in some areas. But it offered no reliable gauge of the breadth of that support. It was not clear whether long voting lines had formed because few polling places were open, or because turnout was running high.

A couple things about this Pew poll. For one, notice that its 70 percent in favor of a united Ukraine does not necessarily exclude a yes vote in favor of the question asked yesterday, "Do you support the act of self-rule for the People's Republic of Donetsk?" Federalization of Ukraine could encompass self-rule by the regions. Secondly, as Moon of Alabama makes clear this morning, "Ukraine: Serious Media Largely Confirm Donetsk Poll Results," the Pew poll was conducted before the Odessa massacre Friday before last where 40 pro-federalization protesters were chased into a trade union building and burned alive and this past Friday's slaughter in Mariupol of innocent bystanders.

The Obama administration response to the Donbass plebiscite? Outright rejection:

A State Department spokeswoman, Jen Psaki, said the United States would not recognize the results of the referendums, whatever they were. She said they were “illegal under Ukrainian law, and are an attempt to create further division and disorder.”

Echoed by the British poodle Hague:

Speaking in Brussels, William Hague, the British foreign secretary, said of the votes in eastern Ukraine: “These attempts at referendums have zero credibility in the eyes of the world. They are illegal by anybody’s standards.”

Those who have zero credibility in the eyes of the world are the NATO powers. More cosmetic sanctions directed at Russia are likely. What the U.S. and its European toadies are attempting to elide here is the obvious fact that people of the Donbass do not want to have anything to do with the coup regime in Kiev. This is not going to change. No amount of U.S.-prompted violence is going to alter the primary "facts on the ground." The United States should be ushering the parties to the negotiating table. But we know from experience that a rogue hyper-power addicted to violence is not going to make such a move. So we are back to the failed state scenario, a U.S. specialty.

With Latinos Disillusioned, Democrats Headed for a Rout

For those who follow politics, Obama's reelection in 2012 was never seriously in doubt. The reason? Romney was consistently polling lower than McCain's anemic levels of Latino support in 2008. When the dust finally settled on the landslide drubbing the Republicans took in 2012, Hispanic voting was identified as the Holy Grail of future election success.

This past Saturday Charles Blow devoted his column to the growing split between young and old voters. Young people are trending overwhelming Democratic, while the aged, once solidly Democrat because of New Deal and Great Society legacies, now align with the GOP. But what I found interesting about Blow's opinion piece was the data backing up Latinos' electoral clout:

According to a 2011 Pew Research Hispanic Trends Project report, most of the growth in the U.S. population from 2000 to 2010 was due to Hispanics. 

The report found: 

“Since 2000, nearly 6 million more Latinos have become eligible to vote. The bulk of this growth was attributable to the 5 million U.S. born Latino youths nationwide who turned 18 during this past decade. That translates into an additional half-million U.S. born Latinos coming of age each year — a pattern that is certain to persist, and grow, in the coming decades.” 

The wave of demographic change and the liberal leaning of the young can’t be held back indefinitely through obstruction and aggression. A change is coming, and it’s blue.

But what if Hispanics, so discouraged by the rottenness of our duopoly, choose not to turnout? This is the realization that is dawning inside the beltway. Jackie Calmes had an excellent story, "Hopes Frustrated, Many Latinos Reject the Ballot Box Altogether," published Monday which was echoed yesterday from within the beltway by establishment pundit John Harwood.

The thinking goes like this: Obama and the Democratic Party have been successful because they have enjoyed huge advantages over Republicans among the young, women and Hispanics, and they have been successful at motivating these groups to go to the polls. Turnout among these groups always drops off precipitously during midterm elections, while the drop off for older, white voters -- the key GOP demographic -- is not as severe. Couple this normal drop off with the burgeoning disillusionment with Obama among the young and Latinos and you have a recipe for Democratic disaster come November.

What is pathetic and speaks to the hollowness of American democracy, the Republicans -- an absurd concatenation of Copperheaded money-power servants -- will reap huge rewards from the estrangement of core Democratic constituencies.

As of now, it appears that Democratic strategists and camp followers like Harwood are whistling past the graveyard with a tune that says as long as resources are invested in turnout a gigantic electoral rebuke can be avoided. But this is a canard designed to fulfill institutional expectations.

Yes, November is a long way away. But the loss of faith in Obama is real. There is no going back. Democrats are headed for a rout.

Despite Massive Propaganda Americans Don't Want Involvement in Ukraine

Before leaving work yesterday I saw a fundraising pitch based on Nate Silver's recent prediction that the Democrats will lose the Senate this fall. It is going to be tough for Democrats to generate any enthusiasm among their base when they are constantly saber rattling in Congress.

Today Obama is to deliver a speech in Brussels that will tack closely to themes that have proven to be a dud over the last couple of months. The floundering president will outline once again why Russia is a threat to "international norms," and he will remind Americans that the United States must stay fully engaged in Europe (as if we were reliving the days of the Berlin airlift).

But the American electorate wants nothing to do with it. This is driven home by the following paragraph from a story, "Obama Answers Critics, Dismissing Russia as a ‘Regional Power’," this morning by Michael Shear and Peter Baker:

In that poll [a survey by the Pew Research Center], conducted Thursday through Sunday, concern about Russia has increased recently, but only about a quarter of those surveyed said they viewed Russia as an adversary of the United States. About four in 10 said Russia is a serious problem, but about half said it is important for the United States not to get involved in the situation between Russia and Ukraine.

Take a moment to absorb that. After one month of panicked shrieking and constant demonizing -- really, as close as it gets to an all out information war in this country -- more than 50% of the public still says don't meddle in Ukraine. Granted, the numbers, due to the information war, have started to move in an anti-Russian direction, but nothing like the Obama administration can feel comfortable with after going all in with its strategy to vilify Putin.

Obama is weakened. I think at this point, what with Nate Silver's prediction and the president's inability to get his IMF overhaul bill through Congress along with the Ukraine bailout, there is no question that, absent some sort of bizarre, ahistoric turnaround, Obama is truly a lame duck. His approval rating languishes in the 40s, with those disapproving his performance registering over 50%.

Things are going to go from bad to worse. The New York Times is basically engaged in a blackout of news coming from inside Ukraine; it can only publish stories about "Russian provocation" in the eastern part of the country. What goes unmentioned is the turbulence within the putsch government. Ukrainian defense minister Ihor Tenyukh was dismissed the other day after troops failed to obey his command to fire on Russian forces in the Crimea. Tenyukh is a member of the fascist Svoboda party. Also going unreported in the Gray Lady is the murder of Right Sector leader Oleksandr Muzychko.

The Ukrainian putsch government is highly unstable. The Obama administration prefers that these facts are kept from the homeland; otherwise, the government has to answer for backing another failed state a la Libya. And so far "the paper of record" has proven largely compliant. Hopefully this will change.

But what will not change is the continuing hemorrhaging of the Democratic Party. Though there is no increase in popular support of the GOP, the Republicans will benefit and organized labor will shrink even smaller.

Warhawks on the Ropes

The warhawks were dealt two enormous blows yesterday. First, several polls were published showing a super-majority of respondents opposed to an attack on Syria. Pew Research Center, Reuters/Ipsos and New York Times/CBS News had surprisingly similar results, the most noteworthy of which is that opposition to a United States military strike has actually grown in September despite the Western media almost unanimously falling in line behind the Obama administration's tendentious case for war. This from yesterday's Reuters story by Mark Felsenthal:

Americans' opposition to a U.S. military strike against Syria is increasing as they learn more about the Arab nation's alleged use of chemical weapons, according to a new Reuters/Ipsos poll that shows the challenge President Barack Obama faces in seeking congressional approval for military action. 

The poll, conducted September 5 to 9, indicated that 63 percent of Americans opposed intervening in Syria, up from 53 percent in a survey that ended August 30. That was a week after the August 21 chemical attack in a Damascus suburb that U.S. officials say killed more than 1,400 adults and children. 

Meanwhile, support for a U.S. intervention in Syria has declined, the poll found. About 16 percent of Americans surveyed said the United States should get involved - down from 20 percent on August 30.

And even if it's proven that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's troops used chemical weapons against fellow Syrians, only 26 percent of Americans said the United States should intervene. About 52 percent said the U.S. military should not get involved in such a circumstance, up from 44 percent on August 30.

The story in the New York Times by Mark Landler and Megan Thee-Brenan is an amazing testament to the public's distaste for war and its wariness of the siren call of the humanitarian bombers:

The poll underscores a steady shift in public opinion about the proper American role in the world, as fatigue from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan has made people less open to intervening in the world’s trouble spots and more preoccupied with economic travails at home. 

In the Syrian crisis, 6 in 10 Americans oppose airstrikes, according to the poll, with similar majorities saying they fear military action could enmesh the United States in another long engagement in the Middle East and would increase the terrorist threat to Americans. 

But the antipathy to foreign engagement extends beyond the current crisis. Sixty-two percent of the people polled said the United States should not take a leading role in trying to solve foreign conflicts, while only 34 percent said it should. In April 2003, a month after American troops marched into Iraq, 48 percent favored a leading role, while 43 percent opposed it. 

When asked whether the United States should intervene to turn dictatorships into democracies, 72 percent said no while only 15 percent said yes. That is the highest level of opposition in a decade of polling on this question. At the start of the Iraq war, 48 percent favored staying out and 29 percent favored getting involved. 

“A lot of people bought the idea that if we create democracy in the Middle East, the terrorists would stop coming,” said Walter Russell Mead, a professor of humanities and foreign policy at Bard College. “But that conflation has disappeared, and that makes it harder to gin up the popular support for foreign military intervention.”

The depth of this repudiation should not be understated, and I'm sure it has the elites who run the show quite concerned. The Kosovo model of skirting international law in the name of policing self-defined "crimes against humanity," what has come to be known as the "responsibility to protect" initiative in the United Nations, is now completely rejected. Even though people accepted Obama administration allegations of Assad regime chemical weapons use, they do not feel this justifies even a limited intervention, and they're also opposed to arming the rebels:

The resistance to getting involved in Syria is deep. While 75 percent of people think that Mr. Assad’s forces used chemical weapons, 74 percent say they oppose supplying rebel forces in Syria with conventional arms. The Obama administration reluctantly adopted that policy on a covert basis in June after it concluded that Syrian forces had used chemical weapons on a smaller scale in previous attacks.

The depth of the repudiation for governing elites -- in the media, in government, in the think tank foreign policy establishment -- is immense. The rulers need to go back to the drawing board and figure out how play their "Great Game" peacefully. This of course will not happen.

Which brings us to enormous blow #2 suffered by the warhawks yesterday -- Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov's proposal, following a John Kerry quip at a news conference in Britain yesterday, for Syria to give over its chemical weapons to the international community. UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon embraced the plan, as did China. Though the response in the West has been tepid, the only outright rejection has come from the Syrian opposition (which is not endearing them to the anti-war public). What we need to worry about now is the French getting out front of the Russians in the Security Council with a proposal loaded down with "poison pills." This from Alan Cowell's "France to Seek U.N. Backing for Russian Plan on Syrian Chemical Arsenal":

In Paris, Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said the French approach to the Security Council would be made under Chapter 7 of the United Nations Charter, which provides for an array of action, including military, to restore peace and would urge the Syrians to accept that their chemical stockpiles would be dismantled. 

He also said he expected a “nearly immediate” commitment from the Syrian authorities and added that Russia had information about the chemical weapons stockpile amassed by the Syrian authorities. Mr. Fabius said that he hoped the Security Council would approve a tough resolution after months of efforts by China and Russia to thwart Western action at the United Nations. 

The French proposal will call for Syria to allow inspectors from the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons to oversee the destruction of chemical weapons in the country and will require that Syria become a member of the organization. It is one of five states that have not signed the Chemical Weapons Convention, an international convention banning the use and stockpiling of chemical arms and the materials required in their production. 

“Extremely serious consequences” would be planned for any deviation from the obligations of the resolution, Mr. Fabius said, though he remained cautious about the prospect of the French proposal being adopted. Russia, a firm ally of Mr. Assad and permanent member of the Security Council, has vetoed three Security Council resolutions on Syria since the start of the conflict. 

“It is upon the acceptance of these precise conditions that we will judge the credibility of the intentions that were expressed yesterday,” Mr. Fabius said.

The danger here is that we will repeat the Iraq scenario. Weapons inspections will be sensationalized and politicized and then, despite any proof of noncompliance, the United States, relying on bogus intelligence, will claim they are a enforcing Security Council resolution, and it will be bombs away.

But that was over a decade ago. The public is engaged now on this issue. Bellicose elites will have to concoct another nefarious scheme to shift opinion. Don't rule out another spectacular attack on the homeland a la 9/11. But for now, the warmongers are on their heels.