Essay:Garry Kasparov on U.S.-Russia Relations

This essay is an analytical critique of Garry Kasparov's "The Still-Clenched Fist in Moscow". This essay aims to show why Garry Kasparov, the leader of the United Civil Front and the chairman of the US' Human Rights Foundation, is too fundamentally attached to human rights and why Op-Eds lack logic in the media.

Kasparov's Illogical Comparison of President Obama to John F. Kennedy
Garry Kasparov begins by evoking President  John F. Kennedy’s  civic revivalism speech during the 1961 Presidential inaugural address. Kasparov uses Kennedy’s speech to create a tradition of supporting liberty and human rights around the world as an American responsibility. Since President Obama is engaging in political relations with President Vladimir Putin of Russia, who Kasparov alleges violates human rights  consistently, President Obama has deterred from Kennedy’s promise. However, simply engaging in talks with President Putin of Russia does not mean President Obama has ignored the human rights violations in Russia. Furthermore, John F. Kennedy was referencing the ideas of liberty from the founding of the United States as a response to the Soviet Union’s attempt to spread communism around the globe.

Kasparov's Short-sighted Appeal to the Magnitsky Act
Kasparov evokes the success of the Magnitsky Act as a democratic celebration towards the political corruption in Russia--Putin's thugs and the oligarchs who support Putin. Yet, the Magnitsky Act applies only to individuals who aided and considered responsible in the assassination of Sergei Magnitsky. The act does not seem to apply to all of President’ Putin’s thugs or cronies. Additionally, the Act by itself could not scare members of the Kremlin, because politicians are diplomats immune from criminal laws or sanctions under the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations of 1961. This immunity is why diplomats have stolen $20 million dollars in traffic fines from New York City, Blackberry's, drunk driving, murder, and got away with no charges.

Nevertheless, the Magnitsky Act would only chase away President Putin’s thugs if they came into the United States or used American banks. There is no evidence that President Putin’s thugs have any interest in coming into the United States at all. There is a host of other international banks in Switzerland, the Virgin Islands, the Czech Republic, the Persian Gulf, and Europe for them.

How many oligarchs is Kasparov talking about?
Kasparov discusses to quite a length the power of the Russian oligarchs buying English soccer teams and how their vacations in the US is an endorsement by Western leaders. However, Roman Abramovich and Alisher Usmanov  are the only oligarchs who has bought English soccer teams—Chelsea Football Club and Arsenal Football Club respectively. Additionally, one Russian oligarch, anti-democratic Alexander Sidyakin, spending his vacation in the United States does not equate to all of the leaders of the Western world. The only people accepting these oligarchs are the owners of the vacation hot-spots. There is nothing that the U.S. government can do to prevent a Russian federation politician from spending his vacation in the United States.

The Protest Against the Infamous Adoption Bill
Mr. Kasparov describes the protest against the controversial Russian adoption bill as if most of Russia turned out to protest it. In reality, only about 20,000 people rally against the anti-US adoption bill on the streets. Most of the other protestors were against Putin’s election scheme. Finally, how does the season bear any effect on how people disagree with Putin’s politics? These protestors already detest Putin independent of the season or temperature.

The Putin Media
Kasparov also critiques Vladimir Putin's pro-propaganda in the mass media]. What is the mass media? President Putin might have controlled over Russian broadcast media, but this power is not equivalent to controlling international broadcast and print media. Kasparov is trying to exaggerate the causes for why other Russians who are not in his party are accepting the negotiations between President Obama and Putin. In reality, Russians can simply surf the internet on a U.S. serve and easily dispel the propaganda on Russian state television.

Wait....All of this was because of one rumored letter between President Obama and the Kremlin
Kasparov does not even know whether President Obama’s letter to Russia actually exists yet he has a published op-ed in the Wall Street Journal—Eastern Edition? He is depending on this rumored letter to critique the Obama’s administration position of Putin, yet he has failed to show the contents of this letter—other than providing hearsay evidence. Finally, Putin might want to hold on to power in Russia; however, he probably does not want to spark a nuclear war over simple political and economic negotiations that he really needs. So, there is no need to cite the weak power of John F. Kennedy on Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev during the Cold War.

Conclusion: One rumored letter got a published op-ed from a former World Chess Champion on how an ineffective law applies to all corrupted Russian politicians and why the US is not pro-liberty anymore
During the 1961 Inaugural address, President John F. Kennedy was responding to the spread of Soviet Union Communism, specifically its encroachment in Asia. He never mentioned asking Americans to go around the world and promote liberty. Instead, he asked others to ask what they can do for their country. President Kennedy meant to spark grassroots political activism—not push American democratic ideals around the world.

U.S. President Obama might have criticized the corruption of some authoritarian leaders around the world during his latest inaugural address, but the President was referencing the giving of economic aid in the aftermath of the 2008 recession to corrupted countries, such as China and the Latin American countries. This article by Kasparov was written in 2013. The promises made by President Obama during his first inaugural address touched on a different context entirely in Russia.

President Obama wants to support democratic drives by people in non-democratic countries. In this case, he is referring to the Arab states and China. Russia is already democratic. Nothing in his second inaugural speech references supporting democracies in Eastern Europe.

Overall, Kasparov keeps referencing the violations of human rights, but he does not cite a single case of human rights violations by Putin’s administration. The ability of rich Russians to vacation in the U.S. or the rumored letter from President Obama to Putin are not human rights violations.