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Giscard backs plan for Turkish/EU ‘partnership’

By Daniel Dombey in Brussels and Vincent Boland in Ankara
Published: November 24

2004 22:03 | Last updated: November 24 2004 22:03

Valéry Giscard d’Estaing, the former French president and chief architect of Europe’s draft constitution, has backed a growing campaign to offer Turkey a “privileged partnership” with the European Union rather than full membership.

“Accession by Turkey would change the nature of the European project. . . it would [because of its size and population] become the major decision-maker in the EU,” he writes in Thursday’s Financial Times. “We have been concerning ourselves with Turkey a good deal recently. Is it not time to give more thought to Europe?”

Mr Giscard d’Estaing’s hostility to Turkish membership is long-standing, but his comments come at a sensitive time ahead of a December 17 decision by EU leaders on opening accession talks with Turkey. EU leaders are all but certain to agree to begin accession negotiations next year with the ultimate goal of giving the country full membership. The process could take at least 10 years.

However, Jacques Chirac, the French president, recently indicated that a “privileged partnership”, which would deepen ties with Turkey but stop short of formal membership and all the rights that such status would grant, should be considered as a fallback option.

Mr Chirac has already promised a referendum on Turkey’s membership at the end of any entry negotiations. Opinion polls suggest more than 50 per cent of French voters oppose Turkey’s entry. Turkish officials declined to comment on Mr Giscard d’Estaing’s analysis. But, speaking on Wednesday, in The Hague, Abdullah Gul, Turkey’s foreign minister, again appealed to the EU for a “fair and impartial” decision on December 17.

At least some of Mr Giscard d’Estaing’s arguments coincide with those of a handful of Turkish commentators and academics who argue that, since much of Europe appears not to want Turkey, it should begin to negotiate for a privileged partnership or other special status short of membership.
Hasan Unal, a professor of international relations at Bilkent University who is a prominent exponent of this view, said on Wednesday: “A close examination of the political and economic situation of the EU tells us that Turkey’s accession is not going to be easy and will not materialise for 15 or 20 years, if it materialises at all.

“There are a number of strong lobbies in Europe who believe that the EU’s integration in the past 10 to 15 years was to achieve cultural unity. This cultural perception is so entrenched that, if the other side believes it, there is not much I can do about it.”

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http://news.ft.com/cms/s/a528fb08-3e51-11d9-a9d7-00000e2511c8,ft_acl=,s01=1.html 

Being ‘clear,’ EU keeps pressure on Turkey
By Katrin Bennhold International Herald Tribune Thursday, November 25, 2004
THE HAGUE Three and a half weeks before European Union leaders will decide whether to allow Turkey to start membership talks, the EU pressed the country to step up the pace of legal reforms and hinted that there was still no consensus in the Union’s 25 capitals.

After the last high-level meeting between the two sides before the long-awaited decision on Dec. 17, Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul of Turkey insisted that his country had earned “the right” to begin formal accession negotiations after a favorable report by the European Commission last month.

But Foreign Minister Ben Bot of the Netherlands, whose country holds the EU’s rotating presidency until the end of the year, said governments had the last word on whether or not Turkey had fulfilled the criteria for beginning talks, irrespective of the commission’s report.

“Let’s be clear on this: The member states decide,” Bot said at a joint press conference here. “In a number of fields more progress should be made.”

Over the next three and a half weeks, it would be “helpful” if Turkey passed draft laws on criminal procedures and judicial policing, Bot said. In addition, he urged Ankara to implement four other pieces of legislation that have been approved by Parliament.

Turkey’s bid to join the EU has deeply split a region that is still coming to grips with its eastward expansion in May, when it opened its door to 10 mainly Eastern European countries and 75 million new citizens. Advocates argue that taking a Muslim country into the Christian club that is the EU would be an important geopolitical gesture at a time when conflict in various parts of the Middle East has pitted Western countries against the Islamic world and helped spark terrorism. They say the EU can export its stability and democracy to Turkey, a gateway to several hot spots in the Middle East and the Caucasus.

Skeptics, on the other hand, warn that with a gross domestic product per head of only 29 percent of the EU average, Turkish accession risks flooding Western labor markets with Turkish immigrants and costing EU taxpayers billions of euros in regional subsidies and farm aid.

As a result, public opinion in many European countries, especially those with large immigrant communities, has turned hostile toward the prospect of Turkish entry, making it harder for their governments to back it.

While few diplomats believe EU leaders will turn Turkey down entirely on Dec. 17, many say lingering doubts in several member states could lead to a string of conditions attached to a tentative starting date for entry talks. Austria has made no secret about its opposition to Turkish accession talks, but recently the language has also hardened in France.

“There are some countries that are ready to give Turkey a clear date, but then there are some who have floated the idea of an alternative relationship that falls short of membership,” said one European diplomat close to the talks between EU governments on the issue, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. “We will need some middle-of-the-road wording that works for everybody.” Bot said the Dutch presidency had been in touch with other European capitals to gauge what different leaders were ready to sign up to.

“We got a very good feeling and very positive reactions,” he said after the press conference Wednesday. “But many member states still have doubts about certain issues.”

Gul, meanwhile, said he was confident that EU leaders would give Turkey a date for accession talks and insisted that his country merited a favorable outcome. “Since the commission report is there and there is a clear-cut recommendation, it’s our right to see all member countries honor their signature,” Gul said. “We fulfilled the political conditions, and the commission declared this. I think we have a right to start negotiations.”

Gul added that his government would pass the outstanding legislative measures demanded by the EU. “Definitely, we will be able to pass all of them. We will fulfill all conditions, and then we expect a good decision.”

The meeting Wednesday was also attended by the foreign minister of Luxembourg, Jean Asselborn, the Dutch European Affairs minister, Atzo Nicolai, and the EU’s new enlargement commissioner, Olli Rehn, who said the Union’s relations with Turkey were a “key priority” for the incoming Commission.

A diplomat from a pro-Turkish country said those countries that dragged their feet at present were lobbying loudly for something they already had secured. The commission report contains a number of strictures to ensure that Turkey, even if allowed to negotiate its membership, would not slow or reverse reform.

EU specialists said a hardening of the line in some countries so shortly before the decision was rooted in domestic opposition to Turkey’s membership.

“It’s meant for home consumption,” said Katinka Barysch, chief economist at the Center for European Reform in London. “They have to take public opinion seriously, but it’s a pity that they are on the defensive, rather than making the positive case for Turkey’s entry.”

http://www.iht.com/bin/print_ipub.php?file=/articles/2004/11/24/news/union.html

.... allons, allons ... et si la depart de Colin Powell etait tout simplement lie a la presentation de sa candidature pour remplacer Koffi Anan ... puisque la candidature de Clinton n a pu etre avancee pour cause de defection de John Kerry dans le processus (prematurement) annonce ...

washingtonpost.com
Bush Seeks to Rule The Bureaucracy
Appointments Aim at White House Control
By Dana Milbank
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, November 22, 2004; Page A04

President Bush has ousted Saddam Hussein, toppled the Taliban and defeated the Democrats, but last week he took aim at a more enduring foe: the federal bureaucracy.

In a flurry of actions in recent days, he and his top lieutenants have taken steps to quell dissent at two fractious agencies—the CIA and the State Department—and to increase White House control over others, including the Justice and Education departments.

The White House moves, and similar changes anticipated at other departments, are likely to quiet some of the already infrequent dissent that has leaked from agencies during Bush’s first term. They may also put a more conservative stamp on the bureaucracy’s administration of the laws and making of rules on everything from the environment to business to health care.

But political scientists and others who follow the Cabinet agencies say the Bush efforts, like those of several other presidents, are unlikely to cause fundamental changes in how the federal government is run.

James Pfiffner, a specialist in presidential personnel at George Mason University, said Bush’s efforts are closest to those of Richard M. Nixon’s after his 1972 reelection, when he installed eight new Cabinet members and several White House officials at sub-Cabinet positions. “It was seen as heavy-handed,” Pfiffner said, and created an us-vs.-them tension between political appointees and civil servants. “They didn’t get the kind of inside, deep-down control that they wanted.”

Still, past failures to rein in the federal bureaucracy have not deterred the Bush administration, which even before the recent moves had been unusually successful at enforcing control over the Cabinet agencies.

Last Monday at the CIA, new Director Porter J. Goss issued a memo outlining the “rules of the road” for the agency. “We support the administration and its policies in our work,” he wrote. “As agency employees we do not identify with, support, or champion opposition to the administration or its policies.” At least three top CIA officials have resigned, and Goss has brought in loyalists from outside the agency.

On Tuesday, Bush named trusted aide Condoleezza Rice to be secretary of state, replacing Colin L. Powell, who frequently and publicly sided with the department’s staff against the White House. Administration officials are talking about several other White House aides joining Rice at State, and about several top-level Foreign Service officers being removed from prominent positions.

The Rice announcement followed by six days Bush’s announcement that he would nominate another White House aide, Alberto R. Gonzales, to be attorney general—succeeding John D. Ashcroft, with whom Gonzales and others at the White House had feuded. Other Bush loyalists have been or soon will be tapped to head the Education, Energy, Agriculture and Treasury departments, agencies where, in some cases, past secretaries have embarrassed Bush with their independence.

Taming the Cabinet agencies is a daunting task. There are 3,000 political appointees and a U.S. civil service of 1.8 million workers, many of whom are nearly impossible to fire.

And the Bush administration has discovered that workers in the agencies—political appointees and civil servants alike—often stray from White House orthodoxy; examples of administration critics include CIA terrorism official Michael Scheuer, who wrote a book about flaws in the fight against al Qaeda; former ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV, who criticized Bush about the case for war in Iraq; and former Treasury secretary Paul H. O’Neill, who frequently contradicted the White House.

Still, the Bush administration has done better than its predecessors at controlling the agencies. “They’ve created a multiplier effect in which these 3,000 political appointees feel like three times that many,” said Paul C. Light, a New York University professor who advised the Bush campaign in 2000 about bureaucracy reforms. Light points out that political appointees now occupy positions in the top 10 or 15 layers of management at the Cabinet agencies. And he says Bush’s top political adviser, Karl Rove, keeps the agencies in line by having a weekly conference call with the chiefs of staff to the agency secretaries and administrators.

Light said the new moves to enforce loyalty at Cabinet agencies, combined with the existing efforts, will drive many of the senior executives in the civil service to retire in frustration, which will give Bush “more coordination and control” over the agencies and “slow down the regulatory process.” Still, Light said, he has found “no interest” in the more far-reaching overhaul of the federal workforce that Bush proposed after consulting with him during the 2000 campaign—which would have, among other things, changed the rules for employing federal workers, making the bureaucracy more like the private sector.

Privately, officials in the White House say there is little hope of truly taming the bureaucracy. Publicly, there is little talk of attempting it. “I don’t think any of the personnel changes at the senior level will influence” the broader civil service reforms, said Office of Management and Budget spokesman Chad Colton. “It’s something we’ll continue at the edges to improve.”

That is not good enough for advocates of fundamental changes in the agencies. Fred Smith, who heads the free-market Competitive Enterprise Institute, said he has acquired a “natural, realistic despair” about hopes for major reforms of the regulatory process.

“Since Jimmy Carter, there has been an effort to get control of the regulatory process and nobody has come close to succeeding,” Smith said. “It’s worse than ever.” Although “the body language” in the new personnel moves indicates Bush is serious about restraining the agencies, “the administration hasn’t decided whether the regulatory threat is serious enough to expend capital on.”

To some extent, every president since Nixon has tried to assert more White House control over the agencies. Some, particularly Nixon and Carter, found that Cabinet secretaries and other political appointees wound up representing their agencies’ bureaucracies rather than the White House’s wishes. Before Bush, the most successful was the Reagan administration, which controlled staffing of Cabinet agencies at the White House.

Bruce Reed, who was the White House domestic policy chief under President Bill Clinton, expressed some approval of Bush’s personnel style. “It’s a good idea to promote from within and there’s nothing wrong with wanting a Cabinet whose agenda is the same as the president’s,” he said.

But Reed cautioned against expecting major changes. “When people take jobs at agencies, they tend to go native and start championing the institution rather than the agenda of the person who put them there,” he said. “Someone who is blindly loyal to the president at the White House may try to develop dual citizenship.”

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A2474-2004Nov21.html?referrer=email

Croyez-vous sincèrement que le votergate ait une chance d’éclater ou, comme disait l’autre, les médias ont-ils les moyens de nous faire taire ?

washingtonpost.com
Moves Cement Hard-Line Stance On Foreign Policy
By Glenn Kessler
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, November 16, 2004; Page A01
By accepting Secretary of State Colin L. Powell’s resignation, President Bush appears to have taken a decisive turn in his approach to foreign policy.
Powell’s departure—and Bush’s intention to name his confidante, national security adviser Condoleezza Rice, as Powell’s replacement—would mark the triumph of a hard-edged approach to diplomacy espoused by Vice President Cheney and Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld. Powell’s brand of moderate realism was often overridden in the administration’s councils of power, but Powell’s presence ensured that the president heard divergent views on how to proceed on key foreign policy issues.
But, with Powell out of the picture, the long-running struggle over key foreign policy issues is likely to be less intense. Powell has pressed for working with the Europeans on ending Iran’s nuclear program, pursuing diplomatic talks with North Korea over its nuclear ambitions and taking a tougher approach with Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon. Now, the policy toward Iran and North Korea may turn decidedly sharper, with a bigger push for sanctions rather than diplomacy. On Middle East peace, the burden for progress will remain largely with the Palestinians.
Moreover, in elevating Rice, Bush is signaling that he is comfortable with the direction of the past four years and sees little need to dramatically shift course. Powell has had conversations for six months with Bush about the need for a “new team” in foreign policy, a senior State Department official said. But in the end only the key official who did not mesh well with the others—Powell—is leaving.
“My impression is that the president broadly believes his direction is correct,” said former House speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.).
Rice sometimes backed Powell in his confrontations with Cheney and Rumsfeld, but more often than not she allowed the vice president and the defense secretary to have enormous influence over key diplomatic issues. More to the point, she is deeply familiar with the president’s thinking on foreign policy—and can be expected to ride herd on a State Department bureaucracy that some conservatives have viewed as openly hostile to the president’s policies. The departures of Powell and his deputy, Richard L. Armitage, could trigger a wholesale reshuffling of top State Department officials.
“Condi knows what the president wants to accomplish and agrees with it,” said Gary Schmitt, director of the Project for the New American Century, a think tank that frequently reflects the views of hard-liners in the administration. “One of Powell’s weaknesses is that even when he signed on to the president’s policy, he was not effective in managing the building to follow the policy as well.”
Of course, senior officials often become advocates of the bureaucracies they head. For decades, there has been an institutional split between the State and Defense departments—though many say the battles in Bush’s first term were especially intense—and so ultimately Rice may find herself in conflict with her Cabinet colleagues over the best diplomatic approach.
Danielle Pletka, vice president of the American Enterprise Institute, said she doubts the battles will end, even if the top officials are less divided on ideology. “This has nothing to do with Colin Powell or Don Rumsfeld or Condi Rice,” she said. “This is a time of real turmoil, a crossroads in history, and figuring out how to deal with these things is not a smooth plot where everything unrolls easily from beginning to end.”
For the rest of the world, Powell was considered a sympathetic ear in an administration that often appeared tone-deaf to other nations’ concerns. There will be “teeth-gnashing” over Powell’s departure by many foreign officials, said Samuel R. “Sandy” Berger, national security adviser in President Bill Clinton’s second term. “Colin was the side door they could get into when they could not get through the front door.”
“The president ultimately set the course,” Berger added. “Colin has had a hard hand to play over the last several years in selling policies not popular to allies.”
Powell had long indicated he planned to leave when Bush’s first term ended. But with Rumsfeld under fire for his handling of the Iraq war, particularly the Abu Ghraib prison scandal, and new opportunities for peacemaking in the Middle East after the death of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, some people close to Powell detected hints he might consider staying for a period of time in the second term—in part to burnish his legacy.
Powell has had a mixed and frustrating tenure as secretary of state, with his most memorable moment—his 2003 speech to the United Nations making the case that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction that were later never found—arguably also his lowest point. The U.N. speech tarnished Powell’s legacy, even though his personal popularity remains high—both among the public and inside the State Department.
Much of Powell’s tenure was marked by fierce battles with his bureaucratic foes and by few lasting achievements in key foreign policy areas. Under his watch, North Korea added to its arsenal of nuclear weapons and Iran has advanced dramatically in building a nuclear weapon. The invasion of Iraq was ordered by Bush despite Powell’s misgivings, and Powell was often frustrated as he tried to steer U.S. policy on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Powell did, however, champion a new approach to development aid, tied to whether a country advances in building political and economic institutions.
A senior State Department official said that Powell’s resignation was almost a foregone conclusion given the tension Powell had with the president, Cheney and Rumsfeld. Powell just never fit: Bush had to ask for reassurance that Powell would be with him in the Iraq war, Powell believed Cheney had a “fever” about al Qaeda and Iraq, and Powell felt Rumsfeld was never straightforward, practicing his “rubber gloves” approach of never taking a stand in the inner council, this official said.
The bad blood between Cheney and Powell dates to the 1991 Persian Gulf War, when Cheney, then the defense secretary, felt that Powell sometimes failed to keep him informed, and even tried to exclude him from some aspects of war planning. In his 1996 autobiography, “My American Journey,” Powell expressed some puzzlement about Cheney’s character. As a leader of congressional Republicans, he wrote, Cheney “preferred losing on principle to winning through further compromise.”
Staff writer Thomas E. Ricks contributed to this report.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A52540-2004Nov15.html?referrer=email
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washingtonpost.com
Powell Announces His Resignation
Secretary of State Clashed With Cheney and Rumsfeld; Rice to Succeed Him
By Mike Allen
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, November 16, 2004; Page A01
Secretary of State Colin L. Powell announced his resignation yesterday, ending four years of battles with Vice President Cheney and Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld over the course of U.S. foreign policy.
Administration officials said Powell, whose departure was announced by the White House along with three other Cabinet resignations, will be replaced by national security adviser Condoleezza Rice, one of President Bush’s most trusted confidantes. Rice will be replaced by her deputy, Stephen J. Hadley, administration officials said. The Rice and Hadley announcements will be made as soon as today, the officials said.
Republican officials said the selection of Rice reflects Bush’s determination to take personal control of the government in a second term, especially departments and agencies that he felt had undermined him in the first four years. Powell’s departure is also a victory for conservatives, removing the administration’s most forceful advocate for negotiations and multilateral engagement on such issues as Middle East peace and curbing nuclear activities in Iran and North Korea.
A White House official said Powell, who helped persuade Bush to seek approval from the United Nations before invading Iraq, indicated to the president weeks or months before Nov. 2 that he planned to leave soon after the election. But one government official with personal knowledge of the situation said Powell had second thoughts and had prepared a list of conditions under which he would be willing to stay. They included greater engagement with Iran and a harder line with Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.
Powell and Bush met at the White House on Friday, the date on the secretary’s letter of resignation. Details of the meeting could not be learned, but White House officials said the secretary was not asked to stay. A senior State Department official said Powell made no demands of the president and gave no hints that he might stay, an account echoed by White House aides.
Bush issued a statement yesterday calling Powell “one of the great public servants of our time” and praising “the calm judgment and steady resolve he has brought to our foreign policy.”
In an appearance yesterday afternoon in the State Department briefing room, Powell said he will stay “a number of weeks or a month or two, as my replacement goes through the confirmation process.” He described his departure as long in the making.
“In recent weeks and months, President Bush and I have talked about foreign policy and we’ve talked about what to do at the end of the first term,” Powell said. “It has always been my intention that I would serve one term. And after we had had a chance to have good and fulsome discussions on it, we came to the mutual agreement that it would be appropriate for me to leave at this time.”
Foreign policy experts predicted that Powell’s resignation, and Rice’s ascension, could result in a more coherent message from the Bush administration. Kenneth Adelman, a conservative foreign policy specialist, worked with Powell during the Reagan administration. “Powell is a wonderful, wonderful person,” he said. “The sad part about this episode in this Bush administration is fundamentally he and the president disagreed on central issues on national security and foreign policy.”
Rice, by contrast, “certainly shares Bush’s views and has learned better than anyone what Bush’s views are,” Adelman said. “You are not going to have that split in a second term.”
The White House announced Powell’s departure along with the resignations of three other Cabinet members—Education Secretary Roderick R. Paige, Agriculture Secretary Ann M. Veneman and Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham. Their departures—along with the earlier resignations of Attorney General John D. Ashcroft and Commerce Secretary Donald L. Evans, and the likely departure of Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge for a lucrative post in private industry—mean that Bush will replace about half of the 15 heads of executive departments for his second term.
Administration officials said more departure announcements are likely, including one from Transportation Secretary Norman Y. Mineta, the lone Democrat in the Cabinet.
Three of the departments will be headed by officials who are White House staff members and close to Bush: Ashcroft is being replaced by White House counsel Alberto R. Gonzales, and Paige is likely to be replaced by Bush domestic policy adviser Margaret Spellings. Both Gonzales and Spellings worked for Bush in Texas. A Bush aide said the goal is to signal a Cabinet “that clearly takes a team approach.”
The impact, according to one Republican close to the administration, will be to “control the government, not just the White House” in the second term and to give the president “an enhanced ability to control the broad sweep of policy undertaken in the second term.”
White House press secretary Scott McClellan suggested that the resignations were a mix of voluntary and involuntary. “The president has the right to make decisions about who makes up his team for a second term,” he said.
Administration officials said Rumsfeld, the other most prominent member of Bush’s war cabinet, will continue to run the Pentagon for the foreseeable future.
“The decision was made to keep Rumsfeld and drop Powell because if they would have kept Powell and let [the Rumsfeld team] go, that would have been tantamount to an acknowledgment of failure in Iraq and our policies there,” one government official said, requesting anonymity to speak more candidly. “Powell is the expendable one.”
Rumsfeld was asked during a news conference yesterday if he had submitted his resignation to Bush. “I haven’t discussed that with him at all, in writing or orally,” he said. Rumsfeld did not say whether he had discussed the matter with Cheney.
Powell has consistently shown up in polls as the administration’s most popular figure. He was accorded movie-star treatment by mammoth crowds in 1995 during the book tour for his autobiography, “My American Journey.” He kept his party affiliation secret during his military career, and both parties sought him as a presidential candidate. He finally said he was a Republican who supports affirmative action and abortion rights.
When Bush was Texas governor and running for president, his flirtations with Powell—who was chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff under President George H.W. Bush during the Persian Gulf War—bolstered his case that he could handle foreign policy. Powell was the first African American to become secretary of state, and Rice will be the first black woman in that office.
During his tenure as chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Powell was known for the Powell Doctrine, which called for the use of overwhelming force for a quick, clean victory and minimal cost in American lives. But as secretary, he was repeatedly outmaneuvered by the Pentagon and was never able to persuade the administration to adopt that approach in Iraq, or to accept the State Department’s plans for post-invasion occupation in Iraq.
Powell brought together representatives of the United Nations, the European Union and Russia to design the “road map” for peace between Israelis and Palestinians, but has not been able to persuade the White House to use the muscle necessary to implement it. Powell is also credited with improving U.S. relations with Russia and China, helping to persuade Libya to give up weapons of mass destruction, pushing the administration to increase its commitment to the international fight against AIDS, and promoting the administration’s Millennium Fund, which linked U.S. aid to democratic reform.
Powell, 67, objected in private to the timing of the invasion of Iraq and to the way the United States prepared for it. But in what friends see as irony, one of the most memorable appearances of his tenure was his February 2003 presentation to the United Nations, televised live worldwide, in which he used satellite photos and other evidence—some of it since discredited—to make the case for using force against Iraqi president Saddam Hussein.
Kenneth M. Duberstein, chief of staff to President Ronald Reagan and a friend of Powell’s, said the secretary’s decision “is about him getting his life back again.”
“He wants to be able to tinker under the hood and go to hardware stores and eat rotisserie chicken, just like he used to,” Duberstein said.
Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.) said in a statement lamenting Powell’s resignation that he has “commanded international respect” and “leaves the State Department as still the most respected, most trusted, and most popular leader in America today.”
Staff writer Glenn Kessler contributed to this report.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A50926-2004Nov15.html?referrer=email

Bush vows to improve ties with Europeans

By David Stout The New York Times Saturday, November 13, 2004

WASHINGTON President George W. Bush and Prime Minister Tony Blair vowed Friday to shore up the frayed relationship between the United States and Europe and to work together for the creation of a stable, democratic Palestinian state.

On a day when Bush said he would visit Europe “as soon as possible” after his inauguration in January, both leaders said that deeper ties between America and European nations were vital for the promotion of worldwide democracy. They also said they were deeply committed to seeing a Palestinian state side by side with Israel.

In a White House room resplendent with the red, white and blue of the Stars and Stripes and the Union Jack, Bush emphasized the friendship and trust he and Blair have built up.

Blair has been Bush’s most steadfast ally in the campaign to overthrow Saddam Hussein and build a new Iraq.

The president seized upon a chance to dispel any notion that Blair is only the junior partner in the alliance and that Bush’s forthcoming trip to Europe is meant to repay Britain and its leader.

Asked by a British questioner whether he agreed with the characterization of his closest European ally in Iraq as “your poodle,” Bush said: “He’s plenty capable of making his own mind. He’s a strong, capable man.”

Of the prime minister’s commitment to the Iraq campaign, Bush said: “The prime minister made the decision he did because he wanted to do a duty to secure the people of Great Britain.”

The president went on to extol Blair as a visionary who stands by his word, unlike some people in politics.

“What this world needs is steady, rock-solid leaders who stand on principle, and that’s what the prime minister means to me,” Bush said.

The leaders agreed that, in a world transformed by the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, it is not enough that states be merely stable. They must be both stable and democratic for lasting stability, they said, citing the emerging governments in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Bush did not specify which European countries he hoped to visit, although there have been strains between the United States and Germany and France, both of which opposed Bush’s decision to wage war in Iraq.

Some European leaders - and many of their countrymen, according to opinion surveys - saw the Iraq campaign as a reckless American adventure, rather than an undertaking by a broad coalition, as Bush has tried to portray it.

The president did not mention those frayed relationships Friday, but his announcement that he intends to visit Europe was tacit acknowledgment that they need mending.

“My second term, I will work to deepen our trans-Atlantic ties to nations of Europe,” Bush said.

“I intend to visit Europe as soon as possible after my inauguration. My government will continue to work through the NATO alliance and with the European Union to strengthen cooperation between Europe and America.”

Blair also dismissed the idea of an American “payback” for London’s support in Iraq and elsewhere, suggesting in effect that some people see things backwards.

“We’re not fighting the war against terrorism because we are an ally of the United States,” he said.

“We are an ally of the United States because we believe in fighting this war against terrorism. We share the same objectives. We share the same values.”

Bush and Blair both offered their condolences to the Palestinian people without mentioning the cause of their grief, the death of Yasser Arafat, who was buried Friday at Ramallah on the West Bank. Bush, who never met the Palestinian leader and made no secret of his disdain for him while he was alive, did not change his tone Friday.

“Our sympathies are with the Palestinian people as they begin a period of mourning,” he said, “yet the months ahead offer a new opportunity to make progress toward a lasting peace.”

The president also seemed lukewarm at best toward Blair’s idea for an international conference on Middle East peace. “I’m all for conferences just so long as the conferences produce something,” Bush said. He added that, if a conference could indeed pave the way toward a Palestinian state, “you bet I’m a big supporter.”

As for a timetable on creation of a Palestinian state, Bush said he dislikes being pinned to artificial time constraints.

But he added, “I think it is fair to say that I believe we’ve got a great chance to establish a Palestinian state, and I intend to use the next four years to, to spend the capital of the United States on such a state.”

Just after winning re-election, Bush commented that the American people had given him political capital to spend, and that he intended to do just that.

http://www.iht.com/bin/print_ipub.php?file=/articles/2004/11/12/news/blair.html

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News Analysis: The benefits of ‘special relationship’
By Patrick E. Tyler The New York Times Saturday, November 13, 2004
WASHINGTON Whatever the cynics say about the special relationship between the United States and Britain, it appeared to pay off Friday for Prime Minister Tony Blair, who came to Washington seeking to reinvigorate America’s commitment to a Palestinian state on Israel’s flanks.

On a crass political level, it was payback time. President George W. Bush conferred on his friend and principal ally the status of being the first foreign leader to visit the White House since Bush’s electoral victory. But that was not enough for Blair, whose popularity has plummeted, at home and in Europe, precisely because he so closely allied himself and Britain with the American military campaign in Iraq.

The Guardian newspaper sent the prime minister off to Washington with a scolding editorial that his judgment on Bush’s leadership was still “on probation” and America’s policies in Iraq in no way had been vindicated by Bush’s victory.

Facing his own re-election contest next spring, and an on-going rebellion in his governing Labour Party over the course of the war, Blair would have gotten no political boost from just another appearance with Bush under the chandeliers of the White House East Room.

He came with a mission to get an unambiguous and strategic commitment from the American president to close a deal for a Palestinian state that has eluded all their predecessors.

The reason is that Blair believes that the restoration of hope for Palestinians will bring a sense of balance back to Middle East policy and sap some of the energy feeding the jihadist movement and a world wide network of Islamic extremist groups.

A great many Britons - and Europeans - have come to believe that the war in Iraq has contributed to the spread of terrorism and, thus, on the other side of the Atlantic, Blair has been waging a fight for his own credibility as violence and instability threaten elections in Iraq and the prospects for any success in the Holy Land.

Speaking here as the memorial services for Yasser Arafat were under way in Cairo, Bush and Blair - though short on providing any details - changed the language Friday of the Middle East peace process by stating they were going to do whatever it takes in coming months to support democratic elections in the Palestinian territories. They pledged to mobilize the international community to help rebuild security and other civil institutions in the occupied West Bank and Gaza, allowing a new and democratic Palestinian authority to emerge for negotiations with Israel.

Wearing a red tie and blue shirt to match Bush, Blair seemed bursting with satisfaction when the president said with crystalline clarity, “I think it is fair to say that I believe we’ve got a great chance to establish a Palestinian state, and I intend to use the next four years to - to spend the capital of the United States on - on such a state.”

But Blair has been disappointed before.

In language far more blunt than he used at the White House, he told Labor Party leaders this fall at their conference in Brighton, England, “This party knows the depth of my commitment to the Middle East peace process and shares my frustration at the lack of progress.”

“Military action will be futile unless we address the conditions in which this terrorism breeds and the causes it preys upon,” he said.

It has been a struggle to influence Bush’s course in the second term, and Blair has waged his own campaign to sway the policy debates of Washington.

In greeting the president’s re-election on Nov. 3, Blair used a megaphone across the Atlantic to say that revitalizing the Middle East peace process “is the single most pressing political challenge in our world today.” In doing so, he was also taking on some of the ideologues of the Bush administration who had downgraded to insignificance the conflict over homeland between Israelis and Palestinians, even though it has triggered four wars and still animates politics in the region.

The prime minister’s visit may have had the effect of elevating it once again to the status as a strategic concern for American policy in the Middle East. And Blair knows, because he was just last week in Brussels with the 24 other leaders of the European Union, that a new commitment to building a viable and democratic Palestinian state would also do a lot to bring Europe and the United States back together after the estrangement over Iraq.

Bush’s pledge that he would work in his second term to “deepen our transatlantic ties to nations of Europe” and visit the Continent soon after his inauguration in January was a strong signal that both he and Blair understand how much damage needs to be repaired if the old cold war partnership across the Atlantic is to be summoned again - this time for effective diplomacy on an urgent agenda of supporting elections in Iraq, preventing nuclear proliferation in Iran and finding a settlement in the Holy Land.

By delivering Bush for the European agenda on Middle East peace, Blair stands also to restore his badly tarnished credentials on the continent, where had styled himself as the essential European leader with real influence in Washington. Now, he appears to have told Bush that Britain can help deliver the Europeans for greater assistance and cooperation in the in the Holy Land, perhaps through an international conference in London. That would make cooperation on Iraq and on containing Iran’s nuclear program easier, his aides say.

http://www.iht.com/bin/print_ipub.php?file=/articles/2004/11/12/news/assess.html

For EU and NATO, snags over intelligence

By Judy Dempsey International Herald Tribune
Thursday, November 11, 2004

BERLIN While NATO and the European Union appeared to absorb former Communist nations and other new members with ease last spring, diplomats from both groups say that doubts about the reliability of some countries and lingering disputes have brought the important function of sharing secrets to a virtual standstill.

The ability to exchange intelligence is extremely important for both alliances as their military experts work around the clock for the EU to take over in early December the NATO-led mission in Bosnia and Herzegovina - the Europeans’ most ambitious and largest military role to date.

Diplomats said Wednesday that the success of the Bosnian mission would depend on both sides’ working very closely on intelligence issues. But neither Cyprus nor Malta, which along with eight former Communist countries joined the EU on May 1, has clearance to share NATO secrets.

“Enlargement, and continuing disagreements over Iraq, has weakened the level of trust among the member states belonging to both organizations and between the organizations,” said Jean-Yves Haine, a military expert at the EU-backed Institute for Security Studies in Paris. “It is making cooperation very, very difficult.”

According to diplomats who spoke on condition of anonymity, two of the countries that are causing some of the biggest difficulties for the enlarged NATO and EU are Bulgaria and Turkey.

Bulgaria joined NATO last spring and is due to join the EU in 2007. But 15 years after the overthrow of the Communist leader Todor Zhivkov, the small Balkan country has yet to rid the top echelons of its military and security services of officers trained in the former Soviet Union.

Last month, Emil Vulev, who was chosen to be Bulgaria’s first ambassador to NATO, was denied security clearance. General Dimitur Georgiev, commander in chief of the Bulgarian Air Force, was denied access to NATO classified documents.

Another general, Pavlomir Kunchev, was blocked from becoming Bulgaria’s military representative to NATO’s military headquarters in Mons, Belgium.

The cases have been acutely embarrassing, both for the current government in Sofia and for NATO itself, which has put great store in its ability to share intelligence with the seven new former Communist countries that joined the alliance last spring.

But it is Turkey that has tried to use EU enlargement to pursue its own agenda, NATO and EU diplomats say.

On the one hand, Turkey, a key longtime member of NATO, is still furious over Cyprus’s refusal earlier this year to accept a United Nations peace plan that would have ended the island’s 30-year-old division. Denying security clearance to Cyprus and Malta, is, in the view of some European Union diplomats, Turkey’s way of showing its displeasure.

On another level, Turkey is using the security issue as a means of exerting pressure on EU leaders who are to decide next month whether to give the final go-ahead for what are expected to be long negotiations ending in membership for Turkey.

Turkey has used similar tactics in the past. For nearly two years, throughout 2001 and 2002, it blocked a NATO-EU agreement - known as Berlin Plus - that would have allowed both organizations to share and exchange intelligence. Ankara lifted its veto only after receiving assurances from EU leaders at their December 2002 summit in Copenhagen that they would speed up pre-accession negotiations with Turkey.

NATO diplomats said the result then and now is the same: Cooperation between NATO and the EU has almost come to a standstill.

“In fact, the cooperation is simply not developing,” bemoaned a senior NATO diplomat who requested anonymity.

What it means in practice is that whenever the North Atlantic Council, which consists of the 26 NATO ambassadors, meets with counterparts from the EU’s Political and Security committee, Cyprus and Malta are regularly excluded. “If intelligence or security issues are on the agenda, we are asked beforehand not to attend,” said a Maltese diplomat.

The result is that the EU, on security issues, cannot function as a union of 25 countries. NATO, as an alliance, is then extremely reluctant to share intelligence with the 23 other EU countries, fearing that its intelligence would be compromised by being shared with Cyprus and Malta, who have no right to see it.

“It is very messy,” said the NATO diplomat. “Cyprus and Malta could be trusted with some classified material. And if not, they could easily tighten up their systems. The point is that security clearance requires agreement from all NATO members.”

Some diplomats said the stalemate between the EU and NATO could be broken at the EU summit. A French official said: “Maybe, if Turkey gets what it wants from EU leaders next month - a date for starting accession talks - cooperation will improve. It is hard to know.”

“Turkey may even hold out longer until Cyprus, under EU pressure, opts for the UN peace plan.”

http://www.iht.com/bin/print_ipub.php?file=/articles/2004/11/10/news/allies.html

deux articles mal fagotés :

un lien direct
http://tinyurl.com/46ky7

et

Goss provokes crisis at CIA
By Shaun Waterman
UPI Homeland and National Security Editor

Published 11/14/2004 8:31 PM

WASHINGTON, Nov. 14 (UPI)—The senior management of the CIA’s clandestine=
service was poised to resign en masse Monday, robbing the nation’s spies o=
f a leadership team that one agency veteran said was the best for many year=
s.

According to two former senior agency officials who maintain close contacts=
at CIA headquarters in Langley, Va., and who were independently interviewe=
d by United Press International, the crisis follows a series of clashes wit=
h a new chief of staff, imported by recently appointed CIA Director Porter =
Goss from his team at the house committee he chaired.

Others suggest that the clandestine service managers are merely playing bur=
eaucratic games, in an effort to undermine the new leadership of Goss and s=
tymie efforts at reform.

The clandestine service, formally known as the Directorate of Operations is=
headed by Steven Kappes, the deputy director of operations; his deputy Mic=
hael Sulick and the service’s No. 3, a woman who cannot be named because sh=
e works undercover.

The three are “The strongest leadership the DO has had in many, many years,=
” John Macgaffin, who held Sulick’s post in the early 1990’s told UPI.

“More importantly,” he added, “they are seen by the rank and file as the st=
rongest leadership to date, and most importantly of all they have taken a l=
ong hard look at what went wrong before Sept. 11 and have begun to address =
those flaws.

“It would be truly tragic if these individuals, who have done so much alrea=
dy to prevent another Sept. 11 were to be lost to the agency and to the nat=
ion.”

Macgaffin refused to comment further on the controversy and would not confi=
rm or deny a reports over the weekend that Kappes had tendered his resignat=
ion after being told to “get rid” of Sulick, but the broad outlines of the =
account were verified to UPI by several other serving and former intelligen=
ce officials.

One report said that Kappes and the others had been persuaded to hold off a=
ny decision until Monday, but one of the two former senior CIA officials wh=
o were the main sources for this story suggested to UPI it was a done deal.

“They have taken down the pictures in their offices,” he said.

The other was less sure: “I would say ‘poised’ is the word.”

According to the mostly matching accounts provided by these two sources, th=
e threatened resignations are the culmination of two to three weeks of conf=
lict with new CIA Chief of Staff Patrick Murray and Jay Jakub, special assi=
stant to the director for operations and analysis.

The two officials, men with intelligence backgrounds but political career t=
racks, are part of a leadership team that Goss has brought in from his staf=
f at the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, which he led as =
a Republican congressman from Florida, until his nomination over the summer=
to the director’s post at the CIA.

The new team has recently been given carte blanche by Goss to make key appo=
intments and other decisions in the Directorate of Operations, say the two =
former officials.

“He’s bringing in political people and giving them hire-and-fire power,” sa=
id one.

Murray and his new team have been given the authority to appoint new chiefs=
of station and new division heads—a power previously exercised by Kappe=
s

But one serving national security official cautioned the new powers might n=
ot been granted yet. “My sense is that this decision has not been finalized=
=2E It may be what they’re pushing for, but if that deal had been closed, w=
e’d have heard more about it.”

The national security official also cautioned that allies of the clandestin=
e service leadership might be trying to spin the media. “Whenever there’s t=
his kind of struggle in an agency, with new people coming in and old ones t=
rying to hang on, there are always going to be attempts to use the availabl=
e mechanisms—including the media—to influence the outcome,” the offic=
ial said.

The official’s warning echoes a comment made over the summer by former Iraq=
weapons hunter David Kay. Speaking to reporters after a conference address=
in Washington, Kay said of anyone who would try to reform the CIA, “They’l=
l need to be ready to be up to their knees in bureaucratic blood ... My for=
mer colleagues in the (Directorate of Operations) will start leaking to the=
ir friends in the media as soon as they hear the swish of the new broom.”

A CIA official authorized to speak on behalf of the agency told UPI he coul=
d not comment on personnel matters. “Will there be changes? Without getting=
into specifics, yes. Is it customary for a new director to make leadership=
changes, and to bring in his own people to handful of senior positions? Ye=
s.”

Il est effectivement très étonnant que J Kerry aie jeté aussi rapidement l’éponge alors que l’on annoncait qu’une armée d’avocats allait surveiller
de très près ce scrutin .
Mystère , il ne doit pas être dans une improbable candidature de Kerry pour 2008 .

Curieusement Le Monde
en première page de son édition du 10 novembre fait passer un petit article ” Mais où sont passés les votes démocrates de Floride”
et dans une autre édition
l’influence probable d’interventions “occultes”
en côte d’Ivoire ...

Bonjour,
Tout système, organisme, etc., porte en lui les causes de sa propre fin. Ce qui est décrit dans cet article participe peut-être à cela.
Ph. Veyrat

Ci dessous, l’actualité du net, qui utilise cette fois-ci le canal de push des listes de diffusion croisées plutôt que le web.

Qu’embrasera un tel feu de paille ?

Ce “message de l’autre amérique” se diffuse en effet comme un feu de poudre par les listes de diffusion mondiales, sautant d’une thématique à l’autre et se diffusant dans tous les milieux. Les quelques références en ligne montrent que la faille à l’unité américaine, aussitôt colmatée par Kerry risque de se montrer bientôt à nouveau béante.

MESSAGE DE L’AUTRE AMERIQUE

“Date: Wed, 03 Nov 2004 15:26:38 -0800
X-Accept-Language: en-us, en
Subject: Requiem pour une démocratie.

Vous vous êtes réveillés ce matin au son du canon qui va tonner…
Et vous avez sans doute pensé a nous, comme on pensé a vous

Ici, l’amérique est morose.
La soirée électorale chez des amis a été un enterrement des espoirs.
Même pas de colère, une tristesse, un abattement qui nous a fait fuir.
Un peu comme notre 21 juin, mais sans la révolte et la Bastille
immédiate, spontanée, évidente.
Cette amérique ne s’est pas levée hier soir.

Ce matin, tout Los Angeles faisait la gueule dans le bus.
Silence de mort et tout le monde regarde ses pompes.
Un étudiant répond au téléphone et commente l’élection
Il insulte toute l’amerique à voix haute.
Il compte finir sa thèse et partir au canada.
Il règne une ambiance de lendemain de coup d’etat.

Ce matin, les collègues sont moroses.
Personne ne parle.
Comme si les commissaires politiques nous espionnaient deja.

Mais l’Amerique ce n’est pas que ca.
C’est aussi Internet et la révolution hippie.
Alors on surfe, et on fouille le net pour les straces d’étincelles de refus.
Que reste-t-il des mois de campagne de la gauche radicale ?
Que reste-t-il de Kerry qui a éreinte Bush aux trois debats télévisés ?
Que reste-t-il des inscriptions massives des noirs en Floride ?
Que reste-t-il des files d’attente de plusieures heures pour pouvoir voter ?

Rien.
Ou plustot une avance de 3 millions de voix pour Bush.
L’amérique aime faire la guerre pour faire le plein de ses Jeeps
L’amérique aime etre la plus forte, meme s’il faut etre detestee.
L’amérique aime pas les pédés, et leur refuse le droit au mariage.

Pourtant, on y a cru.
Kerry ne pouvait pas perdre.
Les sondages de sortie des urnes le donnaient devant Bush avec 320
Gds Electeurs sur 270 nécessaires.
L’Ohio et la Floride étaient Démocrates.
Mais voilè... les sondages se sont trompés.
Les sondages ne penvent pas être precis…

Sauf que…
Ce sont des sondages de sorties des urnes.
Ceux que vous avez sur toutes les TV à 20 heures et zéro secondes.
Et a ma connaissance, ils ont l’habitude d’être precis.
D’ailleurs, ils ont été précis dans presque tous les états.

Sauf…
En Ohio et en Floride
Sans doute pas de chance.
Dans ces états, qui ont decidé l’élection, les sondés ont mentit aux sondeurs.
Ca arrive.
Près de 10% de menteurs qui ont dit avoir voté Kerry et qui ont en
réalité voté Bush.
Les plaisantins voulaient faire rire l’amerique.
C’est pas raté.
Faut dire que la blague est assez colossale

C’est pas de chance que ca soit dans des états qui ont massivement
employé des machines a voter électroniques.
C’est pas de chance qu’aucune trace écrite n’existe pour vérifier les votes.
C’est pas de chance que les électeurs se soient plaints de la
fiabilité de ces machines.
Cest pas de chance que les boîtes qui les fabriquent soutiennent les
Républicains.
C’est pas de chance que personne n’ait écouté les activistes qui
disaient depuis des mois :
“Si on emploie ces machines-là, y’a aucune chance que Bush vole pas
une deuxième élection”
Mais ce sont des illuminés qui racontent que l’assassinat de JFK
était un coup d’etat.

Mais c’est pas grave, car les médias sont d’accord sur une chose :
Les sondages ne peuvent pas se tromper à ce point.
Il faut absoluement faire quelque chose.
Alors….

Je n’ose a peine vous le dire…

Ils ont changé, a posteriori, les résultats des sondages.
Pour donner raison aux machines a voter.
Comme ça, discretement, pendant la nuit.

Voilà pourquoi l’amérique a l’air d’être en deuil aujoud’hui.
Elle se demande si elle a enterré sa démocratie hier soir.

Il fait beau chez vous ?
Moi, j’ai envie de pleurer.
Je pense au sang qui va couler.

/Bernard/”

références :
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2004/11/3/04741/7055
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2004/11/3/12251/3014
http://www.democraticunderground.com/

Votre article , “vote gate “, est assez effrayant , pourquoi n’aurait-on pas recommencé le scénario de 2000 ?
Pourquoi l’intervention de Ben Laden juste avant les élections ? Le Temps de Geneve y consacrait un article très interessant .  Il est évident que son apparition , connaissant les liens le liant à la famille Bush , n’était certainement pas pour
se faire le chantre de Kerry .
Mais où cela va-t’il mener ?  Là réside l’intérêt de savoir .

Une politique d’ingérence contraire à la tradition gaullienne

Date: 04 November 2004 à 00:00:00 MSK
Sujet: Аналитика

REMARQUES SUR UNE DECLARATION DU PORTE-PAROLE DU QUAI D’ORSAY SUR LA BIELORUSSIE

Actualités diplomatiques du ministère des Affaires étrangères Sommaire du point de presse du 26 octobre 2004 d’une porte-parole du Quai d’Orsay:
3 - BIELORUSSIE ‘‘La France reste très préoccupée par les derniers développements en Biélorussie, en particulier par la répression dont font l’objet les manifestations pacifiques qui se tiennent quotidiennement à Minsk depuis le 18 octobre. Ces manifestations font suite aux scrutins du 17 octobre dernier, qui n’ont pas permis aux électeurs biélorusses d’exprimer librement leur volonté.
La France rappelle à cet égard les conclusions de la mission d’observation de l’OSCE, auxquelles elle souscrit pleinement, ainsi que la déclaration de l’Union européenne du 20 octobre. La France relève par ailleurs les mesures prises par les autorités biélorusses à l’encontre des responsables de l’opposition, telles que l’agression dont a été victime M. Lebedko et les emprisonnements de M. Statkevitch et de plusieurs membres du mouvement ‘’ Zubr ‘’. La France est disposée à examiner avec ses partenaires de l’Union européenne et la communauté internationale toute mesure qui pourra contribuer au renforcement de la société civile biélorusse et à l’évolution de la Biélorussie vers la démocratie et l’Etat de droit. ‘’

Remarque d’Yves Bataille sur cette déclaration du porte-parole du Quai d’Orsay :
Messieurs, Concernant la Biélorussie, dans le paragraphe 3 des Actualités Diplomatiques du Ministère des Affaires Etrangères, en date du 26 octobre, le porte parole du Quai d’Orsay ne se contente pas de se livrer à une attaque en règle inadmissible contre un pays indépendant et souverain, il prend aussi fait et cause pour un mouvement dénommé Zubr. Peut-être que le porte-parole ne sait pas ce qu’est ce groupe. S’il l’ignore c’est fort dommage pour un fonctionnaire s’exprimant au nom de la France, mais s’il le sait, c’est encore plus grave.

Pour ceux qui ne le sauraient pas Zubr est l’équivalent d’Otpor en Serbie, de Kmara en Géorgie, de Pora en Ukraine et de Mjaft en Albanie, des pays où l’ingérence des Etats-Unis est proportionnelle à leurs intérêts géostratégiques qui divergent, on le constate quotidiennement de ceux des Européens. Ces mouvements de jeunesse ne sont en rien, comme il est suggéré, des émanations spontanées de la « société civile », mais au contraire des fabrications sponsorisées à millions de dollars par les faux nez de l’ingérence états-unienne dans les points chauds qui concernent directement l’Europe (les Balkans, le Caucase, l’anneau circulaire de l’Eurasie). Ces relais s’appellent USAID, National Endowment for Democracy (NED), Open Society Institute (Fondation Soros), German Marshall Fund of the United States, Freedom House etc. En collaboration avec la Jamestown Society où l’on retouve Zbigniew Brzezinski, le théoricien du démantèlement de la Russie, Freedom House, dirigé par l’ancien responsable de la CIA James Woolsey, héberge The American Committee for Peace in Chechnya chargé de conduire la guerre de l’information contre Moscou et les intérêts européens sous le prétexte déjà utilisé dans les Balkans de la démocratie et des droits de l’homme (défendus comme on le sait en Irak). Avec des associations comme International Crisis Group (ICG) de Morton Abramowitz, l’homme qui livra naguère les missiles Stinger au moudjahidine afghan proche d’Osama Ben Laden, le trafiquant de drogue Gulbuddin Ekmatyar (toujours en activité), on se trouve là au cœur du dispositif d’ingérence américain en Eurasie. Ces mouvements ne sont pas seuls. On a fabriqué aussi pour les besoins de la cause une série de sites Internet chargés de renforcer la propagande virtuelle, et des instituts de sondage (comme le CeSID en Serbie) qui « accompagnent » les élections des pays-cible, autrement dit désignent à l’avance les vainqueurs, influencent psychologiquement les votes et donnent des résultats que n’ont pas encore les commissions électorales, avant même la clôture des scrutins (on constate leurs collègues beaucoup moins rapides aux Etats-Unis).

Comme Otpor, Kmara, Pora ou Mjaft, Zubr a été entraîné, dressé au bazar de rue et à l’agit-prop politico-médiatique pour intervenir au moment opportun, recevoir la publicité des médias occidentaux et délégitimer les pouvoirs en place. Sur la base des théories dites de la « guerre civilisée » du professeur Gene Sharp (Albert Einstein Institution, ancien de la John Hopkins University), ces groupes naguère formés dans de grands hôtels de Budapest et de Sofia et aujourd’hui dans une propriété de Vojvodine en Serbie, conduisent des opérations de déstabilisation ciblées qui relèvent de la guerre psychologique et de la guerre civile et non d’une action pacifique ou de simple lobbying comme on voudrait nous le faire croire. En conséquence il est désolant de voir un représentant de la France, le porte parole du Quai d’Orsay, en opposition avec certaines déclarations et la posture à Sotchi mais aussi à Pékin du président de la république Jacques Chirac, reprendre mécaniquement les paroles des think tanks états-uniens, du State Department et du Pentagone auxquels ces « associations pour la démocratie et les droits de l’homme » sont organiquement liées comme l’était hier le groupe de Bernard Kouchner. Etre du côté des forces d’ingérence états-uniennes et contre l’indépendance de pays européens, est-ce bien, du point de vue Français, poursuivre dans la voie esquissée par l’axe Paris-Berlin-Moscou ?

Yves Bataille

Cet article provient de http://evrazia.org