A Great Interview

Front Page Magazine has a great interview with Vladimir Bukovsky, a former leading Soviet dissident. He gives a rather depressing assessment of the reality of the new Russia.
On Russia...

Since the Soviet system was not eradicated, nor even conclusively defeated, lots of old features (and structures) remained practically intact. Above all, most people's attitude to the world remains the same, as most of them did not perceive the demise of the old regime as natural or inevitable. These feelings are running strongest among the military, the FSB (former KGB), the state bureaucracy in general. As a result, Russia today is a schizophrenic state, with one foot in the past, another is in the air, meant to be planted in the future (but never is). Add up to that a "new feature" - criminalization of the society in general, and of power structures in particular (of which the FSB is practically in control of organized crime).

On US-Russian relations...

...All the media revelations of Russian mischief in Iraq were promptly hushed by the White House. We were told that France will be punished, but Russia will be forgiven. Why? Oh, we need Russia for dealing with North Korea! Jesus Christ! Do you guys ever learn? Are you going, (as we used to say in Russia), to step three times on the same rakes in the same movie? This is not funny, really. I can tell you in advance that Russia will be playing the same trick in Korea as it did in Iraq. They will offer mediation, but in secret they will build up Korean stakes, hoping to prolong the crisis and to milk you without delivering. And at the end, when they are caught red-handed again, you will "forgive" them because you need their help in yet another hot spot. Do you not look pathetic, too?

On current Leftists...

Twenty years ago the Left aided and abetted the equally barbaric Soviet regime. Even the current "peace campaign" is just a copy of the 1980s campaign for nuclear disarmament of the West and against placement of "American" missiles in Europe, against SDI (Strategic Defense Initiative) and Western re-armament program. Even some participants are the same. This fact simply confirms what I am saying since 1993: we did not win the Cold War. We did not finish off our enemies either in the East (where old communist nomenklatura and the KGB are still in power), or in the West (where their old collaborators are still a major political force).

On the EU...

The key to understanding present European manoeuvres, squabbles and splits is emergence of the European Union, something most Americans are yet to notice and to stop treating with benign indifference. This is far more sinister development for us, poor Europeans, than any Al Qaeda (which we tend to treat as yet another police problem). Here is not the place to explain in detail what is the EU. Suffice it to say that I call it EUSSR, and many European politicians who oppose the EU have picked up my quip. Essentially, this is yet another attempt by the Left to build yet another socialist Tower of Babel - an over-regulated, over-bureaucratized federal state with the "deficit of democracy" (as the pro-EU politicians call the utterly undemocratic nature of the monster).

On the Battle for Iraq...

Let me be a bit cynical: why do you think I am so pleased with the Iraq war? Because it split and weakened all my enemies. It split British Labor Party. Good. It split the EU. Good. It split NATO and forced it to re-consider its identity. Good. It made the UN irrelevant. Very good. It exposed Russia as a rogue state. Excellent. And if in the process it destroyed one of the worst tyrants of our time, so much the better. I wish the Iraqi people all the best.But only Americans still believe that old Europe is lining up to fight for freedom in the deserts of the Middle East...

On the best future for the UN...

Certainly, the old ones [UN and NATO] are obsolete and are more harmful than useless. UN always was, right from the moment of its creation by Stalin and FDR. It was meant to serve the "progressive causes", such as advancement of socialism, "national liberation", unilateral disarmament of the West, redistribution of wealth from the "rich North" to the "poor South" or just plain anti-Western propaganda. It should have been closed long ago, probably right after the war in Korea, the only known episode where it happened to play a positive role. This alone would have saved us lots of trouble, and hundreds of billions to boot.

In essence, it is non-functioning and wasteful international body which reflects post-war aspirations, ambitions and delusions, as well as the political situation of the 1940s. Why should we keep this anachronism and pretend we respect it? Why should the Security Council be dominated by the powers which won a war almost half a century ago? Why France is still its "permanent member" while Japan is not? It makes no sense.