Putin’s Plot to Get Texas to Secede

[jimmy olsen]

Yeah, good luck with that! 

What a bunch of rubes.

http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/06/vladimir-putin-texas-secession-119288.html#ixzz3dwiZEFdb

Putin's Plot to Get Texas to Secede

For Moscow's right-wingers, payback means teaming up with a band of Texas secessionists.


By CASEY MICHEL

June 22, 2015


Nathan Smith, who styles himself the "foreign minister" for the Texas Nationalist Movement, appeared last Spring at a far-right confab in St. Petersburg, Russia. Despite roaming around in his cowboy hat, Smith managed to keep a low-key presence at the conference, which was dominated by fascists and neo-Nazis railing against Western decadence. But at least one Russian newspaper, Vzglyad, caught up with the American, noted that TNM is "hardly a marginal group,"and quoted Smith liberally on the excellent prospects for a partial breakup of the United States. Smith declared that the Texas National Movement has 250,000 supporters—including all the Texans currently serving in the U.S. Army—and they all "identify themselves first and foremost as Texans" but are being forced to remain Americans.  The United States, he added, "is not a democracy, but a dictatorship."  The Kremlin's famed troll farms took the interview and ran with it, with dozens of bots instantly tweeting about a "Free Texas."

For Russians, this was delicious payback. Since the breakup of the Soviet Union two decades ago, many Russians have come to blame the United States for their plight; a seething resentment over U.S. culpability in the loss of Russian national power is one of the reasons Vladimir Putin is so popular. It has only worsened since the United States has led an international effort to isolate and sanction Moscow over its annexation of Crimea and incursions into eastern Ukraine. Thus, over the past 15 months there has been a sudden, bizarro uptick of Russian interest in and around the American Southwest, most notably Texas, where secessionist sentiment never seems to entirely die out (TNM's predecessor group, the "Republic of Texas," disbanded after secessionist militants took hostages in 1997). In a rehash of the Soviet Union's fate, numerous Russian voices have taken to envisioning an American break-up, E Pluribus Unum in inverse—out of one, many.

Nor is Texas the lone region for which Russia has cast secessionist support since the Crimean seizure. Venice, Scotland, Catalonia—the Russian media have voiced fervent support for secession in all these Western allies. (Of course, Moscow's mantra—secession for thee, but not for me—means you'd be hard-pressed to find any Russian official offering support for Siberian, Tatar, or Chechen independence.) "Since the destabilization of the West is on Russia's agenda, they may try to reach out to the U.S. separatists," Anton Shekhovtsov, a researcher on Moscow's links to far-right movements in Europe, told me. Russia wants a "deepening of social divisions in the American society, destabilizing the internal political life." And certain Texans, rather than running from the taint of an authoritarian backing, have reciprocated.

As a political tack, none of this is completely new. Nearly a century ago, British codebreakers presented the American ambassador with a decrypted cable that came to be known as the Zimmermann Telegram, helping to cajole a recalcitrant United States into the Great War. And understandably so: In the deciphered text, German Foreign Minister Arthur Zimmermann alerted the Mexican government that, should the U.S. enter the war, "we shall give general financial support, and it is understood that Mexico is to reconquer her lost territory of New Mexico, Texas and Arizona."  President Woodrow Wilson's pledge to forgo war evaporated overnight.   

Just a few months ago, a cousin of the Zimmermann Telegram was delivered by a Russian government official, directed squarely at an American government once more waffling about military intervention in the European theater. The speaker of Chechnya's parliament, Dukuvakha Abdurakhmanov, warned that should the U.S. increase its supply of arms to Kyiv, "we will begin delivery of new weapons to Mexico" and "resume debate on the legal status of the territories annexed by the United States, which are now the U.S. states of California, New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada, Utah, Colorado and Wyoming." As to the putative destination for the weapons, Abdurakhmanov cited unspecified "guerrillas." (Sealing his screed, Abdurakhmanov inexplicably cited Joe Biden as the creator of the current Ukrainian government.)

If his comment existed in a vacuum, Abdurakhmanov's histrionics could be laughed off, another sign of Moscow's ferment sapping logical discourse. Unfortunately, it doesn't.

It's unclear just how high up these propaganda efforts go in the Kremlin. But it can hardly be an accident that last December, in the midst of the ruble's parlous plummet, Russian President Vladimir Putin lashed out at putative Western hypocrisy. "As soon as they succeed in putting [our bear] on a chain, they will rip out his teeth and his claws," the president growled. "We have heard many times from officials that it's unfair that Siberia, with its immeasurable wealth, belongs entirely to Russia. Unfair, how do you like that? And grabbing Texas from Mexico was fair!" No matter that the U.S. never wrested Texas from Mexico. No matter that such annexation took place under the 19th-century aegis of expansion and empire. The parallels, to Putin, are too good to pass up.

Russian state media, of course, took the Crimea-as-Texas analogy and sprinted off with it. According to Sputnik, the ballot-by-bayonet "referendum" in Crimea saw its historical precedent in Texas. "If one accepts the current status of Texas despite its controversial origin story, then they are more than obliged to recognize the future status of Crimea," the outlet wrote. Again, if you overlook the reality that land grabs and forced annexations exist in a Victorian firmament, rather than a post-modern international order, then, sure, a faded parallel can emerge, but only if you squint past the prior 170 years of statecraft.


Casey Michel is a recent Master's graduate from Columbia University's Harriman Institute. His writing has appeared in the Atlantic, Foreign Policy, and Slate, and he can be followed on Twitter at @cjcmichel.

[Martinus]

Sounds like a good excuse to round up the secessionists and try them for treason.

[Josquius]

I do recall Russian observers of the Scottish referendum moaning about it being I democratic and invalid... And cybernat idiots eating it up (Russia are the only ones willing to stand up to the media/corporate interest dominated west!!!1111)

[garbon]

Weird that article seems to allege this plot on no evidence.

[The Brain]

His writing has appeared in the Atlantic, Foreign Policy, and Slate, and he can be followed on Twitter

That explains it.

[FunkMonk]

I have only one thing to say to the Russians:

Don't mess with Texas. 

[KRonn]

Smith managed to keep a low-key presence at the conference, which was dominated by fascists and neo-Nazis railing against Western decadence.

As opposed the kind of ISIS like society that groups like this would create. No thanks, I'll take broken, decadent democracy. 

[Razgovory]

Weird that article seems to allege this plot on no evidence.

Yeah, all I'm seeing is they invited a crazy person over to Russia with a bunch of other crazy people.  It's like a world mental hospital mixer.

[Valmy]

Wait somebody in the West has an opinion about Siberia? Putin is taking the joke too far. Not even Russians are stupid enough to believe that.

[Razgovory]

Wait somebody in the West has an opinion about Siberia? Putin is taking the joke too far. Not even Russians are stupid enough to believe that.

He must have seen Spellus twitter account or something.

[Caliga]

This thread amuses me because when I was in college, some high level Russian guy (maybe he was Yeltsin's Foreign Minister? ) came to speak to my Russian history class.  At the end of the lecture the professor opened the floor to questions and some disrespectful hippie bitch started berating him about Chechnya.  He actually countered with Texas, and said how if Texas decided to secede the federal government wouldn't just sit back and let it happen.

[Valmy]

He actually countered with Texas, and said how if Texas decided to secede the federal government wouldn't just sit back and let it happen.

So was he saying he would have no problem with mass murder of Texans?

[Caliga]

 

The point he was trying to make was we wouldn't be cool with Texas just quitting the U S of A, so neither should we expect Russia to be cool with Chechnya just quitting Russia.

[Valmy]

The point he was trying to make was we wouldn't be cool with Texas just quitting the U S of A, so neither should we expect Russia to be cool with Chechnya just quitting Russia.

I don't think anybody had a problem with Russia not being cool with Chechnya just quitting Russia but rather the way in which Russia expressed their lack of coolness with it. So it kind of sounded like either he was saying he would expect the USA to do identical things in Texas or that he would think the USA perfectly justified for doing so.

I mean nobody would have a problem for me not being cool with my wife cheating on me but they might have a problem with me killing her lover and his entire extended family, his friends, his business associates, and all his followers on twitter in response.

[Caliga]

Putin would be ok with that response.