Lew, at least Yushchenko shares our interest in finding out exactly where those US taxpayer dollars went! If when he finally captures the presidency he wishes to launch an investigation into where the money went on his own, might I suggest looking into those thousands of orange flags and items of clothing as well as the enormous plasma television screens that televised the "revolution". Perhaps I am just a spoil-sport, but I find myself rather skeptical that the "people power" was entirely spontaneous and Yushchenko supporters just happened to have a few giant plasma television screens and a few thousand very expensively silk-screened orange banners laying about.
It is refreshing to see the press investigating and confirming Dr. Paul's statement to the House International Relations Committee on US manipulation of the Ukrainian elections.
Nevertheless, some of the usual beltway "libertarians" have taken to posting increasingly shrill and frenetic defenses of their favorite candidates in foreign elections, tarring critics of foreign interventionism with US tax dollars as "terrorists," "Lyndon LaRouche types," and, that old perennial favorite, "Hitler lovers." Sadly, this is what passes for informed discourse among professional Beltway "libertarians." Of course, we are familiar with ad hominem attacks as a smokescreen to avoid the real issues at hand: it is an old neo-con trick.
What many "liberventionists" (who are all, at heart, in love with the idea of Trotsky's "permanent revolution") do not seem to (or care to) comprehend is that US intervention in the internal affairs of independent sovereign nations is inescapably married to statism at home, as someone must pay for this kind of a foreign policy. It also poisons US relations abroad. Yes, I am sure there are many people in places like Ukraine who cheer on a foreign power helping their candidate win. However, these tend to be the most corrupt elements of society, who stand to benefit economically or otherwise by the victory of their candidate. Ask the average Serb, whose living standards have plummeted since the US government installed its preferred leaders, how he likes his "liberation." Or the average Iraqi for that matter.
Anyone who actually bothers to query broad layers of society abroad (and not just those in the English-speaking elite ghettoes in major cities) will soon find out the incredible -- and perfectly understandable -- level of resentment towards the United States for meddling in their internal affairs. That this should come as shock to anyone is a shock to me. Yet some -- sadly many -- involved in foreign policy in the United States view these "little countries" as their playthings, which they can "adopt" and onto which they can force their favorite candidates or philosophies. I have heard this time and time again among 20-something staffers in Congress: arrogantly going on about how this or that elected leader "better get his (insert issue here) straightened out or there will be repercussions!" It is the arrogance of those who do not have to face the consequences of their actions.
Many of these same people, who could never understand the complexities of a society they have never visited -- or perhaps have visited briefly with a conveniently English-speaking guide -- nevertheless love to parrot conventional wisdom about this or that leader as a kind of (pesudo)-intellectual shorthand to silence debate.
So, for example, pointing out that someone like Lukashenko in Belarus was a mere collective farm manager in the countryside during communism while his opponent, US government backed Vladimir Goncharyk, was a member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, elicits gleeful howls among the ill-informed. After all, it is much easier to scream "you are a dictator lover!" than to debate the facts surrounding the US government's active support of one candidate -- particularly one with an objectively darker background -- over another in a foreign election.
And of course, none of these "shorthand" foreign policy analysts wishes to comment on the fact that in the "Stalinist dictatorship" that is Lukashenko's Belarus there are literally no political prisons. How Stalinist dictatorships have softened these days! On the other hand, in US government-supported Shevardnadze's Georgia I toured the filthy, tuberculosis-ridden prisons holding hundreds of Gamsakhurdia supporters and other dissidents. I nearly vomited from the stench. I met with legless, eyeless Gamsakhurdia supporters who were victims of Shevardnadze's torture regime. But it is much easier to attack those who travel to these places and meet with the sad, dirty, impoverished, oppressed victims than to actually bother to leave the glitzy discos and private clubs of the capitol where English is conveniently spoken.
So, it is easy to attack using shorthand and limited information. It is a lot more difficult -- and not very well-paid -- to take the effort to seek the truth in these faraway places rather than to just consider them playgrounds for our own amusement. Most Beltway types would never sign up for such unglamorous duty.
Finally, what is most telling about critics of organizations like the British Helsinki Group is the hypocrisy at the core of their attack. Anyone familiar with the intent of the 1977 Helsinki Accords understands that autonomous civic organizations were to be created to monitor the adherence of signatory countries to the agreement. The whole point of the NGO sector, and particularly where the Helsinki Accords are concerned, is to have organizations completely outside the control of the state to monitor the state. But, we certainly cannot have that, can we? So what do we get? The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) as the official Helsinki body -- an organization with many cut-out NGOs and member organizations, including ones like the International Helsinki Federation, who share the fact that they are all entirely funded by member states. These plush and well-funded organizations are then expected to criticize the very governments who pay their salaries. So when an organization comes on the scene that rejects this corrupt arrangement and refuses all government money, whose members do not receive the enormous OSCE salaries but are in fact, as I was, volunteers, they are attacked as being hopelessly biased. While government funded NGOs are touted as the paragons of impartiality.
It’s a topsy-turvy world, but some will go to any mendacious lengths to justify the use of coercive force abroad. We should take this into consideration when they profess to be against the use of government coercion at home.
