World Youth Day (WYD) indulgences: Rome fiddles while we burn

Amplify’d from reform-network.net

World Youth Day (WYD) indulgences: Rome fiddles while we burn

by Eugene Cullen Kennedy on Aug. 12, 2011

The sex abuse crisis among priests and other church personnel has now exploded like napalm across the entire Catholic world. New revelations tell an old story almost every day: that of the suffering of its victims, often in secret and compounded by ecclesiastical ineptitude, inattention, or moral insolvency.

How Irish that the scandal has turned into a brawl between the Irish prime minister and the Roman authorities he has criticized for their handling of the crisis. That reveals that Ireland’s green is really base metal beneath the phony gilt of its claims to be the land of saints and scholars.

Things are even worse in Germany where the non-stop revelations of sex abuse have stunned the world and embarrassed Pope Benedict XVI who, while all this is going on, is busily promoting a return of the church to the pre-Vatican II period that served as the incubator for a tragedy that has brought immeasurable grief to innumerable people, including the priest sex abusers themselves whose lack of inner growth led them into lives of pseudo-celibacy that made them seem virtuous to their bishops when they were actually menaces to their people.

Now, while Catholics burn with the shame inflicted on them by this crisis, Rome seems so pre-occupied with re-entering the shadowed yesterday of clerical domination that it has no interest or enough spiritual energy to lead the church to a fresh dawn of self-examination and self-cleansing.

The latest example is found in promising plenary indulgences to those who fulfill certain conditions when they attend World Youth Day in Madrid, Spain, Aug. 18-21. BUT WAIT—as they say on infomercials—partial indulgences are also available to those who pray appropriately during this gathering even if they cannot attend in person.

As part of the Reform of the Reform, this unfortunately rings like a church bell with associations of selling such indulgences during medieval times when bartering for grace and time off from Purgatory with cash scandalized Catholics and helped bring on the Reformation.

It is worse now because it confounds the mystery of Time and Eternity in which Roman officials should have an interest even if they lack any understanding of them. These are also critical variables in the human experience of the sexual abuse crisis and confusing them can only increase the suffering of the victims of sex abuse.

Indulgences are airily explained as lessening the temporal, or in time, punishment for sin that actually takes place beyond the reach of time, or the application of its parameters, in eternity. Where there is time, as Joseph Campbell has expressed it, there is sorrow. That is a function of time not of eternity and indulgences make no sense, sold 500 years ago or promised now, as any kind of spiritual currency to bail us out of the timeless sphere of eternity.

Time, with its sorrows, has a meaning for sex abuse victims because there is no time in the human unconscious; it is always NOW. That means that a wound that was seemingly inflicted on a certain date breaks free of the calendar’s grip and is always as fresh in the victim as the moment it was inflicted. There is not statute of limitations for victims and their suffering, no plenary or partial indulgences to relieve them of their wounds.

By turning back to the concept of giving “Get Out of Purgatory” cards to those who attend an event in time demonstrates how estranging to human experience this return to another age really is. The world’s victims are burning with suffering that is not cured by the passage of time and Rome fiddles, neglecting to plumb the depths of the still continuing sex abuse crisis, while talking irrelevantly in the language of plenary and partial indulgences.

To promise to relieve the so called temporal punishment due to sin through indulgences while failing to understand the timeless nature of the suffering of the sexually abused makes one think that Nero may have had it right when he did the fiddling while letting Rome do the burning.

[Eugene Cullen Kennedy is emeritus professor of psychology at Loyola University, Chicago.]

Vatican announces indulgences for World Youth Day

By Carol Glatz Catholic News Service

VATICAN CITY (CNS) — To help encourage prayers for a spiritually fruitful World Youth Day in Madrid, the Vatican announced Aug. 11 that Pope Benedict XVI had authorized a special indulgence for anyone who, “with a contrite spirit,” raises a “prayer to God, the Holy Spirit, so that young people are drawn to charity and given the strength to proclaim the Gospel with their life,” a Vatican decree said. The decree included the offer of a plenary, or full, indulgence to all the young people who will gather with the pope in Madrid. World Youth Day runs Aug. 16-21 in the Spanish capital; the pope arrives Aug. 18. An indulgence is a remission of the temporal punishment a person is due for sins that have been forgiven. The conditions necessary for receiving a plenary indulgence include having recently gone to confession, receiving the Eucharist and offering prayers for the intentions of the pope. Pope Benedict decreed that World Youth Day participants can receive a plenary indulgence if they participate with prayerful devotion in any sacred event or “pious exercise” as well as attend the closing Mass, receive the sacraments of reconciliation and the Eucharist and offer prayers for the pope’s intentions. The decree, signed by Cardinal Fortunato Baldelli, head of the Vatican office that deals with indulgences, said a partial indulgence also is available to all Catholics who are contrite for their sins and offer their prayers with the pope for young Catholics. The cardinal also asked priests around the world to make themselves available to hear the confessions of those who want the indulgence and to encourage public prayers for the success of World Youth Day. In central Madrid’s Buen Retiro Park, 200 portable confessionals will be set up for confessions that begin Aug. 14. The pope will hear confessions at the park Aug. 20. END Read more at reform-network.net

 

See this Amp at http://amplify.com/u/a1auj4

Sex abuse victims to meet Archbishop

Amplify’d from www.independent.com.mt

Sex abuse victims to meet Archbishop

by Scott Grech

The 11 victims of clerical sex abuse at St Joseph’s Home in Sta Venera are set to have a meeting with Archbishop Paul Cremona today at around 11am, at his residence in Attard.

This is the second meeting in almost 18 months that the victims will have with the Archbishop.

On 3 August, two priests were jailed after they were convicted of committing sex abuse crimes at the orphanage around 20 years ago.

Carmelo Pulis, thought to be in his 70s, and who recently resided at St Agatha Convent in Rabat, was sentenced to six years’ imprisonment after being found guilty of abusing nine boys.

He has since been defrocked by the Vatican.

Fr Godwin Scerri, 75, was sentenced to five years’ imprisonment after the court found him guilty of sexually abusing two boys.

Following the guilty verdict, the Archbishop’s Curia released a statement, expressing regret on behalf of the Church.

The last time Mgr Cremona met the victims was on 13 April 2010, following a request by the victims.

That meeting, which lasted over two hours, was described as a “great help” to the victims, Lawrence Grech, who often acts as the victims’ spokesman, said afterwards.

The meeting came about after the Church’s Pro-Vicar, Mgr Anton Gouder, contacted the victims earlier this week through their lawyer, Patrick Valentino.

The victims have not planned to say anything in particular to the Archbishop, Mr Grech said, although he stated that the victims are “still awaiting complete justice. There’s another priest, Fr Conrad Sciberras, who is alleged to have committed sex abuse on us orphans, and we want to see Church proceedings against him sped up”.

The victims’ last meeting with the Archbishop was followed by another meeting with Pope Benedict XVI during his 26-hour pilgrimage to Malta between 17-18 April last year.

A Vatican statement after the meeting said the “Pope was deeply moved by their stories and expressed his shame and sorrow over what victims and their families have suffered. He met with each victim one by one to hear his story and to speak with each privately”. Read more at www.independent.com.mt

 

See this Amp at http://amplify.com/u/a1auir

Amplify’d from www.stltoday.com

Sex abuse victim is paid $6.3 million by Belleville Diocese

St. Peter's Catholic Cathedral in Belleville on Wednesday, August 10, 2011. Photo by Johnny Andrews | jandrews@post-dispatch.com

BELLEVILLE • A clergy sex abuse case with misconduct dating to the 1970s finally ended Wednesday when James Wisniewski's attorney was handed two checks — one red, the other blue — totaling $6.3 million.

Though the case during trial shed a light on how disgraced priest Raymond Kownacki was reassigned to minister at different parishes, it brought little resolution to a set of uncertainties facing the Roman Catholic Diocese of Belleville.

A large group of priests in Southern Illinois has been calling for Bishop Edward Braxton's resignation, claiming he mismanaged the Wisniewski case and others. Braxton also has brought the attention of a national Catholic publication that recently suggested the diocese has financial woes.

The $6.3 million was paid after a nine-year court battle marked by multiple appeals by the diocese. The damages were paid three years after a jury awarded Wisniewski, of Champaign and now in his early 50s, $5 million in a suit in which he claimed Kownacki sexually abused him as a child. But since the 2008 verdict, the judgment grew by another $1.3 million with interest as the Belleville diocese continued to contest the case, drawing criticism.

As recently as last month, Braxton asked the Illinois Supreme Court to reconsider the matter. Of the original $5 million award, $2.6 million was designated as punitive damages.

"I hope this will help the Catholic community," Wisniewski's attorney, Mike Weilmuenster, said after a brief hearing Wednesday at the St. Clair County Courthouse. "It has been quite splintered."

He thanked the jury in the case because it compensated his client and attempted to send "a message to the Belleville diocese that enabling childhood sexual abuse and covering it up will not be tolerated by this community."

Weilmuenster said later in an interview that his client has yet to receive a direct apology from church leadership.

The Rev. John Myler, a spokesman for the diocese, said, "The diocese continues to express our regret for any instances of childhood sexual abuse by a member of the clergy."

Even though the payment was made, with at least $1.5 million coming from insurance, the diocese wouldn't comment specifically about the case. Myler would only add that the "diocese is committed to adhering to its childhood protection policy and the diocese will continue to assist victims and their families according to that policy."

Kownacki was removed from the ministry in 1995 after abuse allegations began to surface. A former housekeeper accused him of raping, beating and performing an abortion on her in the 1970s. That case, which alleged Kownacki was quietly shuffled between parishes, was dismissed after the state Supreme Court ruled that it exceeded the statute of limitations.

Even though Wisniewski filed his case about three decades after he was abused, the jury agreed that the diocese concealed and misrepresented facts about Kownacki, so the statute of limitations did not bar his claim. It's a detail that will likely be argued in other clergy sex abuse cases, particularly those involving Kownacki.

Another case was filed against Kownacki in 2003 by a man identified as John Doe, who as a boy mowed the parish lawn at St. Theresa's Catholic Church and School in Salem, Ill., where Kownacki was pastor from 1979 to 1986. That case was settled in 2009 for $1.2 million. Wisniewski's case also stemmed from the time Kownacki was at St. Theresa's.

Two more cases are pending against the diocese that allege Kownacki sexually abused young boys who are now grown men, as well as a third case involving a different priest.

Kownacki recently moved from a small apartment in Dupo to an assisted living home in south St. Louis. Asked about the case on Wednesday night, he said he did not remember it. He also said he had suffered a stroke that affected his ability to communicate.

The diocese would not comment about the pending cases or the criticism that Braxton has received.

In a June letter to his flock regarding the effort to get the Illinois Supreme Court to reconsider the Wisniewski verdict, Braxton said it was a difficult time to be bishop. But he said offenses by priests continue to have "moral, emotional, legal and financial consequences."

"We are not doing this to 'hide behind the law' as some might suggest," he said of seeking the appeal. "We are doing this in the hope of a clarification of the law and a consistency in applying the law to the Catholic Church. We are also doing it in the hope of conserving resources for responding to other abuse victims and for sustaining the pastoral services of the Diocese of Belleville."

The Southern Illinois Association of Priests has long asked that Braxton be replaced and recently cited the Wisniewski case as an example of why.

The National Catholic Reporter, an independent Catholic newspaper, reported in July that a member of the Belleville diocesan finance council, James Friederich, had called Braxton "a financial disaster."

Friederich noted that Braxton "did not ask the council for its advice or consent before allowing the Wisniewski suit to go to trial," nor did he seek "the advice or consent of the council before he decided to appeal the $5 million judgment rather than try to settle for less money."

Friederich also predicted the diocese "will soon be bankrupt because of (Braxton's) arrogance" with finances and handling of sex abuse cases, according to the National Catholic Reporter story.

Friederich recently declined to comment to the Post-Dispatch. A request to interview James Mroczkowski, the chief financial officer of the diocese, was denied.

Weilmuenster, the attorney, said priests have approached him in support of the case that resulted in the payment Wednesday. Both he and his client, Wisniewski, are still Catholics. He said "it's a shame" that priests overall have been "tarred with the brush of actions" from those who committed abuse.

"The vast majority of priests live very good lives and do very great things," Weilmuenster said.

Related Stories

Related: Pa. cardinal, 88, called to court in abuse case Related: Germans quit church during 2010 sex scandal Related: Related: Illinois high court won't reconsider award in Belleville abusive priest case Related: Priest from Africa is 'gift of faith' as U.S. churches face shortage Read more at www.stltoday.com

 

See this Amp at http://amplify.com/u/a1auij

Wants to raise the retirement age!

Amplify’d from www.youtube.com

Romney - Cut Social Security, Medicare

2012 Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney said he wants to raise the retirement age but he does not want to raise the cap on the payroll tax so that wealthy Americans pay more into Social Security. He also claimed Medicare was contributing significantly to the budget deficit. Cenk Uygur breaks it down. The Largest Online News Show in the World. Google+: http://www.gplus.to/TheYoungTurks Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/tytnation Twitter: http://twitter.com/intent/user?screen_name=theyoungturks Subscribe: http://bit.ly/eWuu5i

See more at www.youtube.com

 

See this Amp at http://amplify.com/u/a1au9g

U.S. Appeals Court Rules Against Obama's Health Care Law

Amplify’d from www.foxnews.com

U.S. Appeals Court Rules Against Obama's Health Care Law

| FoxNews.com

federal appeals court in Atlanta ruled Friday that a provision in President Obama's health care law requiring citizens to buy health insurance is unconstitutional, but the court didn't strike down the rest of the law. The decision is a major setback for the White House, which had appealed a ruling by a lower court judge who struck down the entire law in January. But given that another appeals court, in Cincinnati, has upheld the law, it is increasingly clear that the Supreme Court will have the final say.

"We strongly disagree with this decision and we are confident it will not stand," White House spokeswoman Stephanie Cutter said in a statement.

On Friday, the divided three-judge panel of the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals sided with 26 states that filed a lawsuit to block Obama's signature domestic initiative. The panel said that Congress exceeded its constitutional authority by requiring Americans to buy insurance or face penalties.

"This economic mandate represents a wholly novel and potentially unbounded assertion of congressional authority," the panel said in the majority opinion.

The majority also said that a basic objective of the law is to "make health insurance coverage accessible and thereby to reduce the number of uninsured persons." Without the individual mandate, the majority said, the law "retains many other provisions that help to accomplish some of the same objectives as the individual mandate."

The decision is a review of a sweeping ruling by a Florida judge, who not only struck down a requirement that nearly all Americans carry health insurance, but he also threw out other provisions ranging from Medicare discounts for some seniors to a change that allows adult children up to age 26 to remain on their parents' coverage.

The states urged the 11th Circuit to uphold U.S. District Judge Roger Vinson's ruling, saying in a court filing that letting the law stand would set a troubling precedent that "would imperil individual liberty, render Congress's other enumerated powers superfluous, and allow Congress to usurp the general police power reserved to the states."

The Justice Department countered that Congress had the power to require most people to buy health insurance or face tax penalties because Congress has the authority to regulate interstate business. It said the legislative branch was exercising its "quintessential" rights when it adopted the new law.

During oral arguments in June, the three-judge panel repeatedly raised questions about the overhaul and expressed unease with the insurance requirement. Each of the three worried aloud if upholding the landmark law could open the door to Congress adopting other sweeping economic mandates.

The arguments unfolded in what's considered one of the nation's most conservative appeals courts. But the randomly selected panel represents different judicial perspectives. None of the three is considered either a stalwart conservative or an unfaltering liberal.

The National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB), the only private group to join the 26 states in the lawsuit, cheered the decision.

"Small-business owners across the country have been vindicated by the 11th Circuit's ruling that the individual mandate in the health-care law is unconstitutional," said Karen Harned, executive director of the group's legal center.

"The court reaffirmed what small businesses already knew - there are limits to Congress' power. And the individual mandate, which compels every American to buy health insurance or pay a fine, is a bridge too far," she said.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Related Stories

Could Obama Face Rival for Democratic Nomination?

Consumer Sentiment Hits Lowest Level Since 1980

Fox News Poll: Most Voters Not Hopeful About Direction of Country; Majority Dislikes Debt Deal Read more at www.foxnews.com

 

See this Amp at http://amplify.com/u/a1au8l

Amplify’d from www.space.com

Sun Unleashes Largest Solar Flare in Years

by Clara Moskowitz, SPACE.com Senior Writer

This still from a video taken by NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory shows the Aug. 8, 2011 solar flare as it appeared in the ultraviolet range of the light spectrum. The flare registered as an X6.9 class sun storm, the largest of the Solar Cycle 24. CREDIT: NASA/SDO/GSFC View full size image

An extremely powerful solar flare, the largest in over four years, rocked the sun early Tuesday (Aug. 9), but is unlikely to wreak any serious havoc here on Earth, scientists say. "It was a big flare," said Joe Kunches, a space scientist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)'s Space Weather Prediction Center. "We lucked out because the site of the eruption at the sun was not facing the Earth, so we will probably feel no ill effects." Today's solar flare began at 3:48 a.m. EDT (0748 GMT), and was rated a class X6.9 on the three-class scale scientists use to measure the strength of solar flares. The strongest type of solar eruption is class X, while class C represents the weakest and class M flares are medium-strength events. [Sun's Wrath: Worst Solar Storms in History]

The flare is the largest one yet in the sun's current cycle, which began in 2008 and is expected to last until around 2020. Solar activity waxes and wanes over an 11-year sun weather cycle, with the star currently heading toward a solar maximum in 2013.

"This flare had a GOES X-ray magnitude of X6.9, meaning it was more than 3 times larger than the previous largest flare of this solar cycle - the X2.2 that occurred on Feb 15, 2011," scientists with NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory, a space observatory that monitors the sun, wrote in an update.

Before the Feb. 15 storm, the largest recent solar flare occurred in December 2006, when an X9-class solar storm erupted from the sun.

Solar flares occur when magnetic field lines on the sun get tangled up into knots, building potential energy until they reach a tipping point. Then, that energy is converted into heat, light and the motion of charged particles. While all X-class solar eruptions are major events, they pose the greatest threat to Earth when they are aimed directly at the planet. During those events the sun often releases a cloud of plasma called a coronal mass ejection into space, and sometimes toward Earth. This ejection hurls charged particles that can damage satellites, endanger astronauts in orbit, and interfere with power systems, communications and other infrastructure on the planet.  Today's solar flare, and resulting coronal mass ejection (CME) was not aimed at us, however. [Stunning Photos of Solar Flares & Sun Storms] "Because of its position the CME is going to shoot out into space and not be Earth-directed, and we don’t expect any big geomagnetic storm with this," Kunches told SPACE.com. "We did luck out. If this would have happened a week ago, who knows?" However, some VLF and HF radio communications blackouts have been reported, according to Spaceweather.com, a website that monitors space weather events. Whatever particles do head our way should reach us in a few days. [Video: Aug. 9 Solar Flare Briefly Knocks Out HF Radio] "The cloud will probably miss Earth," SpaceWeather.com wrote. "At this time, however, we cannot rule out a glancing blow from the flank of the CME on or about August 11th." The plus side of such a collision is often unusually spectacular auroras, or Northern and Southern Lights, which occur when charged particles interact with Earth's magnetic field. You can follow SPACE.com senior writer Clara Moskowitz on Twitter @ClaraMoskowitz. Follow SPACE.com for the latest in space science and exploration news on Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook. Amazing New Sun Photos from Space A User's Guide to Solar Flares Photos: Sunspots on Earth's Closest Star Read more at www.space.com

 

See this Amp at http://amplify.com/u/a1au8d

World is witnessing financial WWIII

Amplify’d from rt.com

World is witnessing financial WWIII – Max Keiser

Following the loss of the US’s triple-A credit score which sparked sell-offs on global markets, a new war using financial derivatives has been waged, which by no means can bear the name of WWIII, financial analyst Max Keiser told RT.

Investors however remain unconvinced the country's finances are solid enough. Problems in the Eurozone will be up for discussion by the French and German leaders next week. Max Keiser, financial analyst and host of the Keiser Report on RT, said French banks are now loaded with toxic derivatives that were sold to them by US investment banks. “The US investment banks and the rating agencies are now attacking these French banks. They know where the bodies are buried, and they are using the weapons they sold them to attack them,” he said. “The rating will be downgraded again. This is part of a new era on Wall Street – they go after sovereign debt. Wall Street and rating agencies are working together to destabilize the sovereign debt of these countries,” he added. With the markets swinging back and forth, it looks like traders are panicking. And as Max Keiser believes, it does not look likely to settle any time soon. “The volatility was the goal; by downgrading the rating you create volatility,” he explained. “The derivatives’ volume this week is exploding higher than any week in history. That is making many people on Wall Street and in the City of London very rich. So they will continue to downgrade and to milk the system to extract wealth,” Keiser stated. As austerity measures are forced on people in Europe and the US, they are inevitably going to hit the most vulnerable members of society like those dependent on Medicare and Medicaid in the US, said Keiser. But there are also fears these cuts could slow growth and bring about a new wave of recession. “This is WW III, a new war using financial derivatives. The objective is to preserve the speculative rates given to the Wall Street bankers of zero per cent,” he concluded. Read more at rt.com

 

See this Amp at http://amplify.com/u/a1au7z

Amplify’d from www.washingtontimes.com

Russia uses dirty tricks despite U.S. ‘reset’

Intelligence agents tell of intimidation, smears of American officials, diplomats

-Former Sen. Christopher S. Bond, (right) who served as the vice chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence between 2007 and 2010" width="384" height="242"/>

“We are concerned about the acts of intimidation as well as their record on previous agreements and other activities. It’s a real concern, I’ve raised it. It’s not the intelligence committee that fails to understand the problem. It’s the Obama administration.” -Former Sen. Christopher S. Bond, (right) who served as the vice chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence between 2007 and 2010

By Eli Lake

The Washington Times

In the past four years, Russia’s intelligence services have stepped up a campaign of intimidation and dirty tricks against U.S. officials and diplomats in Russia and the countries that used to form the Soviet Union.

U.S. diplomats and officials have found their homes broken into and vandalized, or altered in ways as trivial as bathroom use; faced anonymous or veiled threats; and in some cases found themselves set up in compromising photos or videos that are later leaked to the local press and presented as a sex scandal.

“The point was to show that ‘we can get to you where you sleep,’ ” one U.S. intelligence officer told The Washington Times. “It’s a psychological kind of attack.”

Despite a stated policy from President Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev of warm U.S.-Russian ties, the campaign of intelligence intimidation - or what the CIA calls “direct action” - has persisted throughout what both sides have called a “reset” in the relations.

They have become worse in just the past year, some U.S. officials said. Also, their targets are broadening to include human rights workers and nongovernmental organizations as well as embassy staff.

The most brazen example of this kind of intimidation was the Sept. 22 bombing attack on the U.S. Embassy in Tbilisi, Georgia. A National Intelligence Council assessment sent to Congress last week confirmed that the bombing was ordered by Maj. Yevgeny Borisov of Russian military intelligence, said four U.S. officials who have read the report.

False rape charge

One example of such intimidation occurred in 2009 against a senior U.S. official in the Moscow office of the National Democratic Institute (NDI), the congressionally funded nongovernmental organization that promotes democracy throughout the world. The Times has withheld the name of the official at the request of NDI.

According to a Jan. 30, 2009, cable from U.S. Ambassador John Beyrle disclosed by WikiLeaks, USAID employees received an email with a doctored photo of the NDI official reclining with an underage girl.

The email from someone purporting to be a Russian citizen accused the official of raping her 9-year-old daughter.

In the cable, Mr. Beyrle said the embassy thought the Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) was behind the smear attack, which also appeared in Russian newspapers. The FSB is the successor agency of the Soviet-era KGB.

Kathy Gest, the NDI director of public affairs, said, “The allegations recounted in the WikiLeaks memo are all false and were protested at the time. We consider the matter closed and NDI, which is legally registered in Russia, continues its programs.”

Former Sen. Christopher S. Bond, who served as the vice chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence between 2007 and 2010, said he had raised the issue of Russian intimidation of U.S. diplomats with the Obama administration.

“We are concerned about the acts of intimidation as well as their record on previous agreements and other activities,” Mr. Bond said. “It’s a real concern, I’ve raised it. It’s not the intelligence committee that fails to understand the problem. It’s the Obama administration.”

Yevgeny Khorishko, a spokesman for the Russian Embassy in Washington, said accusations that Russian diplomats have stepped up intimidation of U.S. officials were false.

“Those are absolutely false insinuations that are not worth any comments. Such kind of ‘information’ is disseminated by those who are not pleased with the new state of the Russian-American relations,” he said.

Recent escalations

Since 2007, according to two U.S. intelligence officials, American posts in Belarus, Russia, Georgia and Kyrgyzstan have complained about instances in which junior Foreign Service officers have come home to find jewelry rearranged, cigarette butts stubbed out on the kitchen table, defecations in the bathroom, and break-ins with nothing of value stolen.

More recently, visiting congressional staff on official delegations have complained of having their hotel rooms broken into and seeing their things rearranged, according to these officials.

David A. Merkel, who served as deputy assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian affairs in 2008 and 2009, said he had seen an escalation in these kinds of direct actions starting in the last two years of the George W. Bush administration.

“It’s meant to limit a diplomat’s ability to meet with individuals by aggressively demonstrating that they are being watched. If you are a political officer and you are cognizant your actions are being watched, you are less willing to meet with people, even if this is a normal activity for a political officer,” said Mr. Merkel, who also served as director for European and Eurasian affairs on the National Security Council from 2005 to 2007.

Other U.S. officials said the intimidation campaign escalated even more in 2010 after the Obama administration expelled 10 Russian “deep cover” agents as part of a spy swap.

Mr. Merkel said these acts of intimidation were reported throughout what Russia calls its “near abroad,” or the independent states that used to be part of the Soviet Union.

“It’s mainly focused on people whose jobs are domestic politics and human rights reporting,” he said. “You have to appreciate how much courage it takes for a foreign national, a Russian or a Belarusian to meet with our diplomats because they know they are being watched.”

Another diplomat who was targeted for embarrassment was Kyle Hatcher, who served at the U.S. Embassy in Moscow as a political officer responsible for tracking religious freedom in Russia.

In August 2009, two Russian newspapers printed stories based on spliced video footage of Mr. Hatcher at a hotel room, claiming he was employing the services of a prostitute.

Two U.S. officials familiar with the incident, who asked not to be named, said the U.S. intelligence community saw this as the work of the FSB.

“They intercepted some phone calls he made and spliced them in a way that made them look strange. Then they took footage of him in a hotel room or something. They made it all look like they had footage of him in sex acts with prostitutes in a hotel,” one of those officials said.

Long history

Moscow’s intelligence services long have played dirty tricks on U.S. diplomats. In the “Spy vs. Spy” world of the Cold War, operations known as “honey traps” - a young, attractive woman woos a U.S. Foreign Service officer into state of semi-undress where he can be photographed and blackmailed later - were commonplace.

The KGB-trained services also on occasion would deliberately break into the hotel room or residence of visiting dignitaries. In some cases, these incidents escalated and U.S. diplomats found their pets killed.

These kinds of tactics largely quieted down after the Cold War, but a spike in such incidents at the end of the 1990s prompted the Clinton administration to form a special bilateral committee to look into them. Moscow’s representative at the time was Vladimir Putin, a former KGB officer who would later become president of the Russian Federation.

The spike in these incidents, described by one U.S. intelligence official as “discreet acts of intimidation,” has been raised discreetly by members of Congress with the Obama administration since 2009.

But the issue became public last month after The Times published a series of stories about the bombing attempt in Georgia.

After The Times published an interview with a Georgian interior ministry official laying out evidence that Mr. Borisov was behind the bombing attempt, five senators led by Republicans Jon Kyl of Arizona and Mark Kirk of Illinois asked the Office of the Director of National Intelligence to provide a briefing on the incident.

In response to that query, the Obama administration released an assessment from the National Intelligence Council, the analytic arm of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.

That report, four U.S. officials said, concluded that two bombs were placed outside a parking lot that abuts the U.S. Embassy compound. One bomb exploded outside the parking lot, another unexploded bomb was tossed over the parking lot wall.

The CIA concluded that Mr. Borisov was acting on orders from Russian military intelligence headquarters, according to these officials. The State Department’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research assessed that Mr. Borisov was acting as a rogue agent, these officials said.

Jamie Fly, executive director of the Foreign Policy Initiative who also served on the National Security Council staff in 2008 and 2009, said the incidents of intimidation of U.S. officials were evidence that the “reset” policy had failed.

“These types of Russian activities directed against U.S. officials, combined with Russian policies pursued by Moscow against U.S. allies, show the concept of a reset in relations with Russia is a joke,” Mr. Fly said.

Internal Russian politics

Mr. Obama was far more optimistic last week in an interview with Russia’s official ITAR-Tass news agency.

“Well, first of all, I think it’s important for us to look back over the last two years and see the enormous progress we’ve made. I started talking about reset when I was still a candidate for president, and immediately reached out to President Medvedev as soon as I was elected. And we have been, I think, extraordinarily successful partners in moving towards reset,” he said.

An administration official who defended Mr. Obama’s reset policy stressed that the political leadership of Russia was sincere in wanting to improve ties with the United States.

“There are most certainly some in the Russian government - nationalists, hard-liners, KGB folks, etc. - who don’t like the reset and are doing whatever they can to derail it,” this official said.

The official compared the Russia situation to domestic U.S. political divisions.

“We also have our critics/skeptics here within the U.S. government who are also still busy fighting the Cold War. And in these matters, they have good justification since certain elements of the Russian establishment are also still fighting the Cold War,” the official said.

This official pointed to Russia’s willingness to help supply U.S. troops in Afghanistan and their support for U.N. sanctions against Iran, North Korea and Libya as evidence of the reset policy’s success.

“The Kremlin seems to be a willing partner, even if maybe some in that regime don’t like this new trend and are doing what they can to derail it,” he said.

However, on Tuesday, Mr. Putin, now Russia’s prime minister and widely seen as its real leader, made some belligerent comments about the U.S., calling it a “parasite” on the world economy.

At a conference of the Nashi and Young Guard youth associations, Mr. Putin also suggested that his country would invite the Georgian breakaway province of South Ossetia into the Russian Federation, effectively annexing land taken in a war three years ago.

Mr. Putin, a former FSB director, is widely regarded as the real man in charge of Russia’s elite establishment of current FSB and former KGB officers.

In 2006, sociologist Olga Kryshtanovskaya produced a study that found 78 percent of Russia’s current elite had ties to the KGB or FSB. Read more at www.washingtontimes.com

 

See this Amp at http://amplify.com/u/a1au7p