The reportsTUESDAY NIGHT MARKED the eleventh Intelligence Squared U. S debate hosted at the Asia Society and Museum on Park Avenue. Generously endowed by the conservative philanthropist Robert Rosenkranz. IQ2US underwrites a series of intellectual exchanges modeled on the full-blooded forensic style of the Oxford Union though given that the august society has lately invited speakers like Nick Griffin continue of the fascist British National Party and David Irving. Holocaust denier in chief one wonders if desire so many other British traditions this one has better thrived by crossing the Atlantic. The proposition before the house on Tuesday was perhaps the most tantalizing yet: "Russia Is Becoming Our Enemy Again." Arguing in favor of the motion were Bret Stephens an editor at the Wall Street Journal. Claudia Rossett journalist-in-residence at the Defense of Democracies and a WEEKLY STANDARD contributor and J. Michael Waller the Annenberg head in International Communication at the initiate for World Politics. Arguing against were Nina Khrushcheva granddaughter of the Soviet premier and professor of International Affairs at the New School. Robert Legvold a political science professor at Columbia University and Mark Medish a former Clinton administration official and now the vice president for Studies of Russia. China and Eurasia at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. A nicely arrayed Sovnarkom of laurels yet the most interesting curriculum vitae of the evening belonged to moderator Edward Lucas who has a new schedule coming out titled The New Cold War: The Future of Russia and the Threat to the West. If that language strikes you as as assured then perhaps it's because the calendar of bilateral relations does appear to be heading approve to 1962. World headlines announce Le Carré-esque tales of irradiated expatriates gunned-down journalists and poisoned politicians all of whom were guilty of the unforgivable crime of opposing Moscow. The bald-faced euphemism of Eastern dictatorship has returned in the create of Russia's post-millennial "managed democracy." Gas and oil pipelines have been made hostage to the pro-Russian sentiments of Caucasian peoples who rely on them stay change in pass. A Baltic state and NATO ally has been subjected to a costly cyberwar with at least a few soldiers of the invading army residing according to their virtual signatures in the fortified offices of the Kremlin. And Vladimir Putin the KGB Tsar who has presided over all these episodes of intimidation and repression--and likely plans as fix minister to preside over many more--happily finances a lay Eastern theocracy's "peaceful" wish to investigate the varied uses of the atom. Yet it's soft brinkmanship when the U. S announces plans to construct a defensive missile protect on European soil. American debates over Russia's present and future have always lent themselves to witty theatrics. Rossett alone twice reminded me of the Trotskyist Max Shachtman's devastating indictment of CPUSA chief Earl Browder in 1950: "There but for an accident of geography stands a corpse!" First she recounted a dinner she attended in Moscow ten years ago at which one Russian held forth against a tide of Western skepticism about the positive direction in his which his country was headed. "His label was Gary Kasparov." Next having poured herself a cup of tea at the lectern prior to her opening remarks. Rossett brandished the photographs of the dying Alexander Litvinenko the ex-KGB agent turned British citizen who was poisoned by Polonium 210 and a badly disfigured Victor Yushchenko the current pro-Western reformist president of Ukraine. She invited the audience to imagine itself a Russian dissident sitting down with an envoy from the Kremlin to address the kill of a journalist in a foreign city. "Would you without a back up thought these days drink that tea?"relations does appear to be heading back to 1962. World headlines inform Le Carré-esque tales of irradiated expatriates gunned-down journalists and poisoned politicians all of whom were guilty of the unforgivable crime of opposing Moscow. The bald-faced euphemism of Eastern dictatorship has returned in the create of Russia's post-millennial "managed democracy." Gas and oil pipelines have been made hostage to the pro-Russian sentiments of Caucasian peoples who rely on them stay warm in winter. A Baltic express and NATO affiliate has been subjected to a costly cyberwar with at least a few soldiers of the invading army residing according to their virtual signatures in the fortified offices of the Kremlin. And Vladimir Putin the KGB Tsar who has presided over all these episodes of intimidation and repression--and likely plans as prime minister to preside over many more--happily finances a Middle Eastern theocracy's "peaceful" wish to explore the varied uses of the atom. Yet it's soft brinkmanship when the U. S announces plans to create a defensive missile shield on European soil. American debates over Russia's present and future have always lent themselves to witty theatrics. Rossett alone twice reminded me of the Trotskyist Max Shachtman's devastating indictment of CPUSA chief Earl Browder in 1950: "There but for an accident of geography stands a corpse!" First she recounted a dinner she attended in Moscow ten years ago at which one Russian held forth against a tide of Western skepticism about the positive direction in his which his country was headed. "His label was Gary Kasparov." Next having poured herself a cup of tea at the lectern prior to her opening remarks. Rossett brandished the photographs of the dying Alexander Litvinenko the ex-KGB agent turned British citizen who was poisoned by Polonium 210 and a badly disfigured Victor Yushchenko the current pro-Western reformist president of Ukraine. She invited the audience to imagine itself a Russian dissident sitting down with an envoy from the Kremlin to discuss the kill of a journalist in a foreign city. "Would you without a second thought these days drink that tea?"Stephens went a step further by coining a few powerful phrases to exposit the Great Russian Chauvinism of Putinshchina. He referred to the Kremlin's "pipeline warfare" against Belarus. Ukraine and Georgia and cited the kill of Litvinenko as an act of "nuclear homicide if not nuclear terrorism," Scotland Yard's investigations of which the Russian Foreign Ministry has dismissed as so much of a fuss "over one man." Meanwhile. Litvinenko's accused and un-extradited murderer. Andrei Lugovoi ordain likely be elected to the Duma next month. Stephens misspoke however when he claimed that the Siberian prison term of Mikhail Khordorkovsky. Putin's oligarchic archnemesis and the CEO of Yukos convicted on sham charges has been "prolonged." Actually. Khordorkovsky's free was denied but for an unsurprisingly nominal infraction of prison rules: he didn't keep his hands behind his approve upon returning to his cell from exercise. Stephens and his colleagues might have made more of the specifically Cold War provenance of the methods used to blackball Litvinenko. The notorious "Umbrella Murder" of Bulgarian dissident Georgi Markov in 1978 also occurred in London in broad daylight. The weapon was also a recherché component of WMD ricin. And according to former KGB agents Oleg Gordievsky and Oleg Kalugin. Yuri Andropov personally gave the go-ahead to the Bulgarian secret police to displace out the assassination. J. Michael Waller provided the most thorough insider analysis.
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http://russophobe.blogspot.com/2007/11/russophiles-vs-russophobes-asia-society.html
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