US campaign behind the turmoil in Kiev

[cal04]

Ukraine, traditionally passive in its politics, has been mobilised by the young democracy activists and will never be the same again.But while the gains of the orange-bedecked "chestnut revolution" are Ukraine's, the campaign is an American creation, a sophisticated and brilliantly conceived exercise in western branding and mass marketing that, in four countries in four years, has been used to try to salvage rigged elections and topple unsavoury regimes.

Funded and organised by the US government, deploying US consultancies, pollsters, diplomats, the two big American parties and US non-government organisations, the campaign was first used in Europe in Belgrade in 2000 to beat Slobodan Milosevic at the ballot box.

Richard Miles, the US ambassador in Belgrade, played a key role. And by last year, as US ambassador in Tbilisi, he repeated the trick in Georgia, coaching Mikhail Saakashvili in how to bring down Eduard Shevardnadze.

Last year, before becoming president in Georgia, the US-educated Mr Saakashvili travelled from Tbilisi to Belgrade to be coached in the techniques of mass defiance. In Belarus, the US embassy organised the dispatch of young opposition leaders to the Baltic, where they met up with Serbs travelling from Belgrade. In Serbia's case, given the hostile environment in Belgrade, the Americans organised the overthrow from neighbouring Hungary - Budapest and Szeged.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/ukraine/story/0,15569,1360236,00.html

[Briar]

1. Ironically

such marketing and branding campaigns were used in the US to return Bush to power.

Dubious means lead to dubious ends.

[VivaKerry]

2. Read this excerpt -- How do we HiRE these youngsters?

In the centre of Belgrade, there is a dingy office staffed by computer-literate youngsters who call themselves the Centre for Non-violent Resistance. If you want to know how to beat a regime that controls the mass media, the judges, the courts, the security apparatus and the voting stations, the young Belgrade activists are for hire.

[VivaKerry]

3. I just can't even believe I am reading what I am reading

in this article.

I love the part at the end of the article where it talks about how the US will deal with exit polls. Two pronged answer to that. If our guy wins, exit polls downplayed. If their guy wins, exit polls emphasized.

[Lisa]

4. they made a film about the Belgrade example

Narrated by Martin Sheen

http://www.pbs.org/weta/dictator/film/

http://www.aforcemorepowerful.org/tv/bringingDownSeries/bringingDown.htm