În 1989, românii erau de o naivitate brutală în privința Occidentului

Corina Tulbure, Barcelona

Ignacio Vidal Folch, scriitor și ziarist, a fost corespondentul ziarului El País în România în 1989. A scris La libertad, despre ultimele zile în dictatură. Revine cu un roman despre tranziția din România, Pronto seremos felices, În curând vom fi fericiți.

De ce ai scris despre tranziția din România la 25 de ani de când ai fost prima dată aici?

De mulți ani mă gândeam la o carte de acest gen despre România pentru publicul spaniol. Și de mulți ani tot merg în România, pentru mine este un loc apropiat la nivel emoțional. Au trecut 25 de ani de la căderea Zidului Berlinului. Eu am fost în București în 1989, în toată luna decembrie și ianuarie. Eram corespondent al cotidianului spaniol El Pais. Ulterior, am avut norocul să asist de la distanță la schimbările care s-au produs după 1989. Mă simt cumva apropiat de România. În plus, cum am trăit trauma conflictului din decembrie 1989, mă simțeam cumva apropiat de români și de ce trăiați voi în continuare, aveam o obsesie cu România, voiam să văd ce se întâmplă. În anii '90, în România eram mulți ziariști spanioli și mai toți ne spuneam: trebuie să explicăm celor din Vest ce se întâmplă aici. Eu am scris atunci La libertad, despre ultimele zile ale dictaturii, și acum tocmai s-a publicat, Pronto seremos felices, un roman despre tranziția din diferite țări din Europa de Est, a treia parte a cărții fiind despre personaje ale tranziției în România.

Cum vedeai ce se întâmpla în 1989, tu veneai cu alți ochi, veneai cu alte experiențe?

În 1989, românii erau de o naivitate brutală în privința Occidentului. Exista însă și o pătură a societății absolut cinică ce s-a dedicat imediat ocupării noilor funcții, a puterii. Pe de altă parte, naivitatea socială era absolută. Când mergeam prin București cu o mașină cu un anunț care punea Press, lumea din jur aplauda. Era o demonstrație de inocență din partea oamenilor. Îmi amintea de o scenă dintr-un film al lui John Huston despre Freud: când Freud ajunge cu vaporul în Anglia, scăpând de teroarea nazistă, lumea din port îl aplaudă, moment în care Freud se gândește: dacă ar ști ce le aduc, nu ar mai aplauda. Freud știa că aducea o cunoaștere a psihicului uman care era cumva distrugătoare. Cădeau mituri anterioare legate de funcționarea minții. La asta mă gândeam eu când intram în România: voi aplaudați, dar vă aducem societatea de consum și toate problemele din Occident, ei știu de ce aplaudă, le spuneam colegilor mei.

În anii care au urmat, cum ai văzut tranziția din România?

Vestea proastă e că în această tranziție România nu este un caz special. Aceleași situații le vezi în Bulgaria, în Serbia. V-ați întâlnit cu ceea ce voi numeați democrație, iar noi numeam capitalism. V-ați întâlnit cu o zonă de libertate, dar și cu o piață, care nu e doar un loc de dialog între cel care cumpără și cel care vinde. România a renunțat imediat la naivitate și a intrat în logica capitalistă, s-a incorporat la ceea ce numim piață, la ideea materialistă a societății, s-a dedicat acestei idei imediat.

Ce viitor există pentru tranziția românească?

România ar trebui să înceapă să producă pe cont propriu, totul, de la discurs politic la economie. Dar nu vreau să dau expectative negative pentru țările care sunt în sudul zonei de producție. Țările din sud suntem țări catastrofice, nu prea sunt știri bune din zona asta.

Criza poate avea și un efect pozitiv pentru România, cade mitul Europei bunăstării, afară nu e așa cum își imaginau românii?

Sigur că în ultimii ani asistăm la apariția unui nou agent politic care este rezultatul decepției, frustrării, se naște ceva acum pe teren politic. Acest ceva este o reacție la toată decadența regimurilor occidentale. Și nu e doar decepția, dar sunt și noi oportunități pentru denunț, protest, oportunități aduse de noile tehnologii. Pe de o parte trăim dispariția societății așa cum o știam și, pe de altă parte, apare un element de reacție brutală, neașteptată pentru puterile actuale. Acum, oricine cu un email poate distruge un Guvern, cum s-a demonstrat cu Assange etc. De aceea acum apar cazurile de corupție, de exemplu, în Spania, cazuri care ajung în tribunale, îmi imaginez că dinamica asta există și în România. Cu un e-mail faci o criză de stat. Prin urmare, parametrul de onestitate publică a fost potențat prin noile tehnologii care deja schimbă politica.

Petru, personajul din noul tău roman, este un îmbogățit al tranziției, un fel de mogul. I-ai cunoscut în România?

Mi-ar plăcea foarte mult să-i cunosc, să stau de vorbă cu ei și să se lipească ceva din bunăstarea lor de mine, dar mi s-a spus că nu risipesc niciun euro, că sunt destul de avari. Bogatul occidental nu simte necesitatea de a demonstra că este bogat, mai mult decât atât, simte oroare când arată că este bogat. Mogulul român simte nevoia să demonstreze constant că este bogat. E ca și cum ai avea un complex. Într-o societate mai săracă, bogăția e simbol al puterii, marcarea unui statut, aici sunt eu, e reflexul unei violențe sociale, violența inegalității.

Spuneai recent, referitor la țările din Europa de Est, că represiunea din aceste țări și existența Zidului Berlinului a menținut statul bunăstării în Occident în ultimii treizeci de ani.

Europa are mereu un fel de conștiință pozitivă despre sine însăși, ca și cum ar fi un continent model de cultură, umanitate etc, ca și cum ar fi un model pentru ceilalți. America Latină este un haos, un dezastru, Asia nu conteaza prea mult. Există o idee europeană referitoare la bunăstarea europeană ca și cum Europa ar fi un continent inocent, când, de fapt, toată bunăstarea europeană s-a organizat pe baza exploatării coloniilor. Exemplul maxim este Belgia. Cu ce scoteau din Congo se construia Belgia. Însă există ideea asta că suntem foarte buni, suntem un model, idee care mi se pare ofensivă, dacă nu chiar jignitoare.

Starea economică proastă din Europa de Est și lipsa comunicării cu ce se petrecea acolo era o garanție de bunăstare pentru Occident. Există un capitalism funcțional, fără suflet, care oferă totul pieței și unul care se preocupă de a evita conflicte sociale, are grijă ca dificultățile unei pături sociale să nu explodeze. Și acest capitalism era atent la vecinul său din acel moment. Și acest vecin era comunismul. Dictaturile din Europa de Est erau ca o închisoare, nu se prea știa ce se întâmplă acolo, dar în același timp, acest comunism care se presupunea că există în Est, bazat pe egalitate, servea drept amenințare pentru capitalismul occidental, amenințare care a dispărut acum. Această alternativă din Est era credibilă, mobiliza straturi sociale în Occident. Odată ce a dispărut această alternativă, capitalul face acum ce vrea. De asta spuneam că statul bunăstării din Vest era garantat de Estul Europei.

Da-i 'nainte ca'nainte era mai bine!

When the East German region of Thuringia confirms its next state premier in the next few weeks, it is likely to be a landmark in postwar history.

Contender Bodo Ramelow, 58, is a former trade unionist and a member of Die Linke (the Left party), successors to East Germany’s communist rulers, the Socialist Unity party (SED). If the Social Democrats and Green party back him, he will become Germany’s first socialist state premier.

Inevitably, some opposition politicians have sounded the alarm. Before the elections, chancellor Angela Merkel warned voters not to “let Karl Marx back into the state premier’s office”. The tabloid Bild lamented that putting Ramelow in charge was tantamount to mocking the victims of the old German Democratic Republic (GDR) regime.

Yet for the most part, reaction in Germany has been surprisingly relaxed. “Since 1989, we have slowly come to realise that not all members of SED were bent on world revolution,” said political scientist Werner Patzelt, a member of Merkel’s Christian Democrats.

“Some of them are just level-headed and hard-working politicians,” he added.

Twenty-five years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, the Left party’s ascendancy in Thuringia is the clearest sign yet that German views on the GDR legacy are becoming more pragmatic and less ideological.

The common view of post-wall Germany is that what had been presented as a reunification became a de facto annexation. West Germany was only prepared to incorporate the five eastern regions on its own terms: East German social models and structures were considered dysfunctional or outmoded – the west had all the answers.

But a closer look at the fabric of Germany in 2014 reveals a country that is more East German than it likes to admit.

Football provides the most obvious example. In Real Madrid midfielder Toni Kroos, Germany’s World Cup-winning squad may have only had one player born in the GDR. Yet the team’s success was largely built on the kind of 10-year plan more common in GDR-style planned economies.

Heinz Werner, a former coach at Hansa Rostock and Union Berlin, said he was dismayed when, after the fall of the wall, he discovered just how little West Germans invested in their players. When Werner raised the issue at the German FA’s annual conference in 1992, he was jeered.

“They told me that training up young players took too much time. ‘We can just buy players when we need them,’ they said.”

But after poor performances at tournaments in 1998 and 2000, the westerners came around to Werner’s thinking.

In 2002, elite football schools were established nationwide, and Bundesliga clubs were forced to set up their own academies. Twelve years later one of the products of the new system, midfielder Mario Götze, scored the winner against Argentina.

Germany is also becoming more East German in its attitudes towards women in the workplace. From a contemporary perspective, GDR state policy looks surprisingly progressive in this regard, even if the reality rarely matched the projected image: East German women got the right to choose their workplace without their husband’s consent in 1950, 27 years before those in the west.

In the early 1980s, more than 90% of East German mothers were recorded as working mothers.

The state provided special university courses for women, generous maternity leave and a comprehensive network of nurseries, even if social attitudes often remained behind the times: housework was still considered a female domain, a state-decreed monthly “household day” off work only available to women.

Today the percentage of working mothers remains higher in the east than in the west. The wage gap between males and females in eastern regions is only 8%, compared with 23% in the west. Every second child below the age of three is looked after in daycare nurseries rather than at home, compared with only every fourth in the old west.

But Germany as a whole is slowly catching up with the east: daycare nurseries have expanded considerably under Merkel.

In March 2014, 662,000 German children under the age of three were looked after in the nurseries.

Hildegard Nickel, a sociologist at Berlin’s Humboldt university, recalled how some policymakers were genuinely trying to combat Germany’s high unemployment after reunification by driving East German women out of the workplace.

“People were making that case in serious academic debates,” she said. “If you suggested increasing the number of nursery places, you’d be criticised for evoking the spectre of communism. Nowadays everyone can legally claim their nursery place. There’s not even a discussion about it.”

Yet openly acknowledging a debt to East German ideas often remains a taboo: in press material, the German FA cites youth training structures in small countries like Holland as an inspiration.

When Germany introduced a bottle deposit system to encourage recycling in 2002, it pointed towards Scandinavia, even though East Germany had a sophisticated recycling infrastructure since the 1960s.

Sometimes, it can verge on denial: when poor results in OECD school rankings led to call for reforms of Germany’s education system at the turn of the millennium, a delegation was sent to Helsinki to study Finland’s top-ranking system. The Finns told them that they, in turn, had taken their inspiration from East Germany.

Developments in Germany’s healthcare system demonstrate that learning from the east does not automatically amount to a revival of its ideological values. In East Germany, a large part of healthcare was provided by polikliniken (polyclinics): state-funded outpatients centres in which GPs shared a roof with specialists. In the west’s private healthcare system, on the other hand, doctors were self-employed and ran their own practices.

After the Wall’s fall, polyclinics were phased out and East German doctors were made to go freelance. Only in Brandenburg and East Berlin were a few specialists allowed to continue working in the old centres.

But a reform of the healthcare system in 2003 has spawned a revival of the old polyclinic structures: increasingly practitioners are once again housed together in so-called Medical Supply Centres (MVZs).

Centres such as the one in Bad Belzig, Brandenburg, were once considered old-fashioned – now they might point the way to the future. In a rural area with low population density, this MVZ conveniently groups together a GP, a surgeon, a radiologist, a gynaecologist, an oncologist and an optician – doctors share office space, medical equipment and expertise.

“What we are seeing now is that there were some structural advantages to the East German model,” said Hans-Joachim Helming, head of the Brandenburg doctors’ association.

“If a GP had a problem, they could just walk to the end of the corridor and ask a specialist. Always fighting for yourself can wear you out – working as a team is useful.”

At any rate, mere Ostalgie – or nostalgia for the east – does not explain the polyclinic revival: out of 2,000 MVZs in Germany today, most are based in the old west, with 393 in Bavaria alone.

Doctors are keen to stress the difference to the East German model: unlike the old polyclinics, MVZs are run on market-led principles, and many doctors start their own centres because it allows them to be more competitive.

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Istoria nu incepe cu noi

Ioan Talpeş, despre planurile secrete de divizare teritorială a României

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1 DECEMBRIE, ZIUA NATIONALA A ROMANIEI

Kissinger si critici ai sai

'Do We Achieve World Order Through Chaos or Insight?'
Interview Conducted By Juliane von Mittelstaedt and Erich Follath

Henry Kissinger is the most famous and most divisive secretary of state the US has ever had. In an interview, he discusses his new book exploring the crises of our time, from Syria to Ukraine, and the limits of American power. He says he acted in accordance with his convictions in Vietnam.

Henry Kissinger seems more youthful than his 91 years. He is focused and affable, but also guarded, ready at any time to defend himself or brusquely deflect overly critical questions. That, of course, should come as no surprise. While his intellect is widely respected, his political legacy is controversial. Over the years, repeated attempts have been made to try him for war crimes.

From 1969 to 1977, Kissinger served under President Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford, first as national security advisor and then as secretary of state. In those roles, he also carried partial responsibility for the napalm bombings in Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos the killed or maimed tens of thousands of civilians. Kissinger also backed the putsch against Salvador Allende in Chile and is accused of having had knowledge of CIA murder plots. Documents declassified just a few weeks ago show that Kissinger had drawn up secret plans to launch air strikes against Cuba. The idea got scrapped after Democrat Jimmy Carter was elected in 1976.

Nevertheless, Kissinger remains a man whose presence is often welcome in the White House, where he continues to advise presidents and secretaries of state to this day.

Little in Kissinger's early years hinted at his future meteoric rise in American politics. Born as Heinz Alfred Kissinger in Fürth, Germany in 1923, his Jewish family would later flee to the United States in 1938. After World War II, Kissinger went to Germany to assist in finding former members of the Gestapo. He later studied political science and became a professor at Harvard at the age of 40.

Kissinger recently published his 17th book, a work with the not exactly modest title "World Order." When preparing to sit down with us for an interview, he asked that "world order" be the topic. Despite his German roots and the fact that he reads DER SPIEGEL each week on his iPad, Kissinger prefers to speak in English. After 90 minutes together in New York, Kissinger says he's risked his neck with everything he's told us. But of course, a man like Kissinger knows precisely what he does and doesn't want to say.

SPIEGEL: Dr. Kissinger, when we look at the world today, it seems to be messier than ever -- with wars, catastrophes and chaos everywhere. Is the world really in greater disorder than ever before?

Kissinger: It seems that it is. There is chaos threatening us, through the spread of weapons of mass destruction and cross-border terrorism. There is now a phenomenon of ungoverned territories, and we have seen in Libya, for example, that an ungoverned territory can have an enormous impact on disorder in the world. The state as a unit is under attack, not in every part of the world, but in many parts of it. But at the same time, and this seems to be a paradox, this is the first time one can talk about a world order at all.

SPIEGEL: What do you mean by that?

Kissinger: For the greatest part of history until really the very recent time, world order was regional order. This is the first time that different parts of the world can interact with every part of the world. This makes a new order for the globalized world necessary. But there are no universally accepted rules. There is the Chinese view, the Islamic view, the Western view and, to some extent, the Russian view. And they really are not always compatible.

SPIEGEL: In your new book, you frequently point to the Westphalian Peace Treaty of 1648 as a reference system for world order, as a result of the Thirty Years' War. Why should a treaty dating back more than 350 years still be relevant today?

Kissinger: The Westphalian Peace was made after almost a quarter of the Central European population perished because of wars, disease and hunger. The treaty was based on the necessity to come to an arrangement with each other, not on some sort of superior morality. Independent nations decided not to interfere in the affairs of other states. They created a balance of power which we are missing today.

SPIEGEL: Do we need another Thirty Years' War to create a new world order?

Kissinger: Well, that's a very good question. Do we achieve a world order through chaos or through insight? One would think that the proliferation of nuclear weapons, the dangers of climate change and terrorism should create enough of a common agenda. So I would hope that we can be wise enough not to have a Thirty Years' War.

SPIEGEL: So let's talk about a concrete example: How should the West react to the Russian annexation of Crimea? Do you fear this might mean that borders in the future are no longer incontrovertible?

Kissinger: Crimea is a symptom, not a cause. Furthermore, Crimea is a special case. Ukraine was part of Russia for a long time. You can't accept the principle that any country can just change the borders and take a province of another country. But if the West is honest with itself, it has to admit that there were mistakes on its side. The annexation of Crimea was not a move toward global conquest. It was not Hitler moving into Czechoslovakia.

SPIEGEL: What was it then?

Kissinger: One has to ask one's self this question: Putin spent tens of billions of dollars on the Winter Olympics in Sochi. The theme of the Olympics was that Russia is a progressive state tied to the West through its culture and, therefore, it presumably wants to be part of it. So it doesn't make any sense that a week after the close of the Olympics, Putin would take Crimea and start a war over Ukraine. So one has to ask one's self why did it happen?

SPIEGEL: What you're saying is that the West has at least a kind of responsibility for the escalation?

Kissinger: Yes, I am saying that. Europe and America did not understand the impact of these events, starting with the negotiations about Ukraine's economic relations with the European Union and culminating in the demonstrations in Kiev. All these, and their impact, should have been the subject of a dialogue with Russia. This does not mean the Russian response was appropriate.

SPIEGEL: It seems you have a lot of understanding for Putin. But isn't he doing exactly what you are warning of -- creating chaos in eastern Ukraine and threatening sovereignty?

Kissinger: Certainly. But Ukraine has always had a special significance for Russia. It was a mistake not to realize that.

SPIEGEL: Relations between the West and Russia are tenser now than they have been in decades. Should we be concerned about the prospects of a new Cold War?

Kissinger: There clearly is this danger, and we must not ignore it. I think a resumption of the Cold War would be a historic tragedy. If a conflict is avoidable, on a basis reflecting morality and security, one should try to avoid it.

SPIEGEL: But didn't the annexation of Crimea by Russia force the EU and US to react by imposing sanctions?

Kissinger: One, the West could not accept the annexation; some countermeasures were necessary. But nobody in the West has offered a concrete program to restore Crimea. Nobody is willing to fight over eastern Ukraine. That's a fact of life. So one could say we don't have to accept it, and we do not treat Crimea as a Russian territory under international law -- just as we continued to treat the Baltic states as independent throughout Soviet rule.

SPIEGEL: Would it be better to stop sanctions even without any concessions from the Russians?

Kissinger: No. But I do have a number of problems with the sanctions. When we talk about a global economy and then use sanctions within the global economy, then the temptation will be that big countries thinking of their future will try to protect themselves against potential dangers, and as they do, they will create a mercantilist global economy. And I have a particular problem with this idea of personal sanctions. And I'll tell you why. We publish a list of people who are sanctioned. So then, when the time comes to lift the sanctions, what are we going to say? "The following four people are now free of sanctions, and the other four are not." Why those four? I think one should always, when one starts something, think what one wants to achieve and how it should end. How does it end?

SPIEGEL: Doesn't that also apply to Putin, who has maneuvered himself into a corner? Does he act out of weakness or out of strength?

Kissinger: I think out of strategic weakness masked as tactical strength.

SPIEGEL: What does that mean for any interaction with him?

Kissinger: We have to remember that Russia is an important part of the international system, and therefore useful in solving all sorts of other crises, for example in the agreement on nuclear proliferation with Iran or over Syria. This has to have preference over a tactical escalation in a specific case. On the one hand it is important that Ukraine remain an independent state, and it should have the right to economic and commercial associations of its choice. But I don't think it's a law of nature that every state must have the right to be an ally in the frame work of NATO. You and I know that NATO will never vote unanimously for the entry of Ukraine.

SPIEGEL: But we cannot tell the Ukrainians that they are not free to decide their own future.

Kissinger: Why not?

'The War Against IS Has Wide Public Support'

SPIEGEL: You're speaking like a superpower that is used to getting its way.
Kissinger: No, the United States cannot dictate, and the US should not try to dictate. It would be a mistake even to think it could. But in regards to NATO, the US will have one vote in a decision based on unanimity. The German chancellor has expressed herself in the same sense.

SPIEGEL: America is very polarized. The level of aggression in the political debate is extremely high. Is the superpower still even able to act at all?

Kissinger: I am worried about this domestic split. When I worked in Washington, political combat was tough. But there was much more cooperation and contact between opponents of the two big parties.

SPIEGEL: In last week's elections, President Obama lost his majority in the Senate as well.

Kissinger: Technically correct. At the same time, the president is freed to stand for what is right -- just as President Harry Truman did between 1946 and 1948, when he advanced the Marshall Plan after losing Congress.

SPIEGEL: The next presidential race will soon begin. Would Hillary Clinton make a good candidate?

Kissinger: I consider Hillary a friend, and I think she's a strong person. So, yes, I think she can do the job. Generally, I think it would be better for the country if there were a change in administration. And I think we Republicans have to get a good candidate.

SPIEGEL: In your book, you write that international order "must be cultivated, not imposed." What do you mean by that?

Kissinger: What it means is we that we Americans will be a major factor by virtue of our strengths and values. You become a superpower by being strong but also by being wise and by being farsighted. But no state is strong or wise enough to create a world order alone.

SPIEGEL: Is American foreign policy wise and determined at the moment?

Kissinger: We have the belief in America that we can change the world by not just soft power, but by actual military power. Europe doesn't have that belief.

SPIEGEL: The American public is very reluctant to be engaged and would like to focus on domestic affairs. Obama himself talks about "nation building at home."

Kissinger: If you look at the five wars America has fought since World War II, they all had large public support. The present war against the terror organization Islamic State has large public support. The question is what happens as the war continues. Clarity about the outcome of the war is essential.

SPIEGEL: Shouldn't the most important objective be the protection of suffering civilians in Iraq and Syria.

Kissinger: First of all, I don't agree that the Syrian crisis can be interpreted as a ruthless dictator against a helpless population and that the population will become democratic if you remove the dictator.

SPIEGEL: But the civilians are suffering, however you define it.

Kissinger: Yes, they are, and they deserve sympathy and humanitarian assistance. Let me just say what I think is happening. It is partly a multiethnic conflict. It is partly a rebellion against the old structure of the Middle East. And it is partly a sort of rebellion against the government. Now, if one is willing to fix all these problems and if one is willing to pay the sacrifices for fixing all these problems and if one thinks one can create something that will bring this about, then one can say, "We will apply the right to interfere," but that means military measures and willingness to face the consequences. Look at Libya. There's no question that it was morally justified to overthrow Muammar Gadhafi, but we were not willing to fill the vacuum afterwards. Therefore we have militias fighting against each other today. You get an ungoverned territory and an arms depot for Africa.

SPIEGEL: But we are seeing a similarly unbearable situation in Syria. The state is falling apart and terror organizations are ruling large parts of the country. Wasn't it perhaps wrong not to intervene in order to avoid chaos that now represents a threat to us as well?

Kissinger: In my life, I have almost always been on the side of active foreign policy. But you need to know with whom you are cooperating. You need reliable partners -- and I don't see any in this conflict.

SPIEGEL: As in the Vietnam War. Do you sometimes regret your aggressive policy there?

Kissinger: You'd love me to say that.

SPIEGEL: Of course. You haven't spoken much about it all your life.

Kissinger: I've spent all my life studying these things, and written a book about Vietnam called "Ending the Vietnam War" and many chapters in my memoirs on Vietnam. You have to remember that the administration in which I served inherited the war in Vietnam. Five hundred thousand Americans were deployed there by the Johnson Administration. The Nixon Administration withdrew these troops gradually, with ground combat troops being withdrawn in 1971. I can only say that I and my colleagues acted on the basis of careful thought. On the strategic directions, that was my best thinking, and I acted to the best of my convictions.

SPIEGEL: There is a sentence in your book, on the last page, that can be understood as a kind of self-criticism. You write that you once thought you could explain history, but that today you are more modest when it comes to judging historical events.

Kissinger: I have learned, as I wrote, that history must be discovered, not declared. It's an admission that one grows in life. It's not necessarily a self-criticism. What I was trying to say is you should not think that you can shape history only by your will. This is also why I'm against the concept of intervention when you don't know its ultimate implications.

SPIEGEL: In 2003, you were in favor of overthrowing Saddam Hussein. At that time, too, the consequences of that intervention were uncertain.

Kissinger: I'll tell you what I thought at the time. I thought that after the attack on the United States, it was important that the US vindicate its position. The UN had certified major violations. So I thought that overthrowing Saddam was a legitimate objective. I thought it was unrealistic to attempt to bring about democracy by military occupation.

SPIEGEL: Why are you so sure that it is unrealistic?

Kissinger: Unless you are willing to do it for decades and you are certain your people will follow you. But it is probably beyond the resources of any one country.

SPIEGEL: For this reason, President Obama is fighting the war against terror from the air using drones and warplanes in Pakistan and Yemen and now in Syria and Iraq as well. What do you think about that?

Kissinger: I support attacks on territories from which terrorist attacks are launched. I have never expressed a public view on drones. It threatens more civilians than the equivalent one did in the Vietnam War, but it's the same principle.

SPIEGEL: In your book you argue that America has to make its decisions about war on the basis of what achieves the "best combination of security and morality." Can you explain what you mean by that?

Kissinger: No. It depends on the situation. What is our precise interest in Syria? Is it humanitarian alone? Is it strategic? Of course, you would always want to achieve the most moral possible outcome, but in the middle of a civil war you cannot avoid looking at the realities, and then you have to make the judgments.

SPIEGEL: Meaning that for a certain amount of time, for realistic reasons, we could be on the side of Bashar Assad fighting Islamic State?

Kissinger: Well, no. We could never fight with Assad. That would be a denial of years of what we have done and asserted. But frankly, I think we should have had a dialogue with Russia and asked what outcome we want in Syria, and formulate a strategy together. It was wrong to say from the beginning that Assad must go -- although it is a desirable ultimate goal. Now that we are locked into that conflict with Russia, a deal regarding the Iranian nuclear program becomes more difficult.

SPIEGEL: Are you in favor of a more assertive role for Europe, especially for Germany?

Kissinger: Yes, certainly. A century ago, Europe almost had a monopoly in creating world order. Today, there is a danger it is just busy with itself. Today, Germany is the most significant European country and, yes, it should be much more active. I do have very high regard of Ms. Merkel, and I think she is the right person for leading Germany into this role. By the way, I've met and been sort of friendly with every German chancellor.

SPIEGEL: Oh, including Willy Brandt?

Kissinger: I have very high regard for Willy Brandt.

SPIEGEL: We're a bit surprised here because a few months ago, a conversation between you and Nixon was released in which you call Brandt a "dangerous idiot".

Kissinger: You know, these phrases out of context confuse the reality. Here are people at the end of an exhausting day saying things to each other, reflecting the mood of a moment, and it probably was during some difference of opinion which I don't even remember. We had some doubts about Brandt's Ostpolitik at the beginning, but later, we worked very closely with him. Ask Egon Bahr, he will tell you: Without the Nixon Administration, Brandt's Ostpolitik would not have achieved its objective, especially on the issue of Berlin.

SPIEGEL: In Germany, you are a very controversial politician. When the University of Bonn wanted to name a chair after you, the students protested. Were you disappointed, or at least irritated?

Kissinger: I appreciate the honor. I didn't ask for the chair, and I only became aware of the chair after it was established. I don't want to be part of the discussion, it's entirely up to German agencies. I think Germany should do it for itself or not do it for its own reasons.

SPIEGEL: Mr. Kissinger, we thank you for this interview.

broremann 11/13/2014
A clever man, but as far as I'm concerned he is a war criminal


dolores.schroepfer 11/13/2014
Kissinger is perhaps the most evil being on the face of this earth. He, along with old man Bush, brezinsky and others of equal evil intention have worked very hard to manipulate! coerce and force nations to create the current disorder so that they! they evil and vile old men! can swooping to save humanity with their new world order. It is high time these evil old men just give up the ghost and DIE. THEY HAVE LIVED AMONG US FOR MUCH LONGER THAN THEY SHOULD HAVE BEEN ALLOWED TO. They should be exiled to a barren, cold, and resource scarce part of the world without ANY COMFORTS what so ever, and no means of contacting anyone for help. Let them rot, starve, or kill each other.


dr_ebil 11/14/2014
You made an interview with Kissinger and never even bothered to ask him about his past? You want key words? Chile, Guatemala, East Timor, Bangaladesh and so on ... Also Kissinger was a key figure at the Nixon shock, when the Petro dollar was created. Afterwards Germany was no more able to exchange the export surplus in gold options. The German Bundesbank still waits for the 1300 tons of gold to be delivered, which the USA owes Germany from before the Nixon shock as trade compensation. Congratulations, you are perfect for this kind of job. However there are many people out there, who exactly know, who and what Kissinger is and what his advice is worth while.
.. dare to give this person a podium like this? Do you have no honor? I mean, you wrote already some of his crimes in the teaser. At least you did this. Your list is far from being complete. What is next? An interview with witnesses of Stalin, Mao, Hitler or other mass murders, how they see the world? The worst thing is, you did not even ask him ONE SINGLE critical question about his past.



johann84 11/14/2014
Kissinger has almost all the qualities what an excellent statesman needs to have. I can think just about Bismarck with similar attitude strategy and achievements.



a-schlueter-kwaku 11/14/2014
Kissinger presents himself here as a "soft spoken wise old man", but we should be clear, for example about his paper NSSM 200, which is essentially reappearing in "Rebuilding America´s Defenses": "And advanced forms of biological warfare that can “target” specific genotypes may transform biological warfare from the realm of terror to a politically useful tool.“ September 2000, page 60, among the authors is Paul Wolfowitz https://de.scribd.com/doc/9651/Rebuilding-Americas-Defenses-PNAC This leads to welbased speculations about Ebola: http://wipokuli.wordpress.com/2014/11/12/ebola-pandoras-box-opened-since-long/ Andreas Schlüter Sociologist Berlin, Germany



docker 11/14/2014
Reflective thinking does not matter much in Kissingers world, as far as his personal life is concerned. Unfortunately, he is still asked for his political views. As a matter of fact, he should better be ignored . Listening to a forked tongue like K. means to fall for an indoctrination of the worst kind .



ivh79x 11/15/2014
Is Mr. Kissinger the only one who sees things for what they really are and has the insight to reveal the truths? We should NOT be facing such global chaos. Who or what has been the cause of this rapid de-stablization of regions? What has unleashed such vile and anti social behavior?



Ted McIntire 11/15/2014
Is Henry Kissinger not the most brilliant consigliere the Republican mob has ever had? He understands the grosser aspects of human nature and National Security very well. I believe he fails to understand that a new reformation is underway and the 350 year world order of National Security defined by the treaties of Westphalia is on its way out. Although he appears as a cunning expert in the consolidation and management of power and wealth, his kind fail to display the level of wisdom and empathy that is called for by the mass of humanity in the world today, and that will eventually come to all corners of our world in the form of Human Security.



waloberner 11/15/2014
Kissinger still believes he is representing "American exceptionalism". This is history. US strategy is fundamentally different from the one of Europe. Therefore, Europe needs to adopt a new strategy in order to achieve the European goal for lasting peace, Russia included. NATO has become an obstacle to peace.


verbatim128 11/17/2014
Seems to me that Dr. Kissinger understands, and fears not to speak about, the Ukraine kerfuffle with the proper perspective. Unlike the interviewers hellbent on bellicoseness. Perhaps our illustrious leaders, and press, should listen and think about the harm which was done to stability of our precarious world order by pushing Russia into a corner where from she can only come out fighting. Haven't we seen this in Georgia in 2008?



justthefacts 11/17/2014
Judging from the comments, Kissinger is certainly a divisive figure. But the interview does an excellent job bringing out the one comment by Kissinger that summarises the current foreign policy disconnect between Europe and North America: "We have the belief in America that we can change the world by not just soft power, but by actual military power. Europe doesn't have that belief." To the extent that Europe and America can come to a cooperative understanding of the proper balance between soft power and military power, their mutual security interests will be enhanced. And if Europe and America cannot come to this understanding, they both contribute to their own mutual weakness and divisiveness.

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se cer niste moțoci

Ghita Bizonu'

Ei… nu stiu ce cred aia de l-au votatara pe Iohanescu, da sa vedem ce crez altii...
Deci din digi24.ro Financial Times: Rezultatul alegerilor prezidențiale din România, probabil cel mai bun eveniment politic din Europa 
Din care extrag urmatoarele citate :

„Rezultatul alegerilor prezidenţiale din România s-ar putea dovedi cel mai bun eveniment politic din Europa anul acesta fiind încurajator pentru cele trei lucruri pe care le arată despre Europa Centrală şi de Est: politica etnică problematică, lupta continuă împotriva corupţiei şi competiţia între alianţa euroatlantică şi Rusia. (…) Rezultatul alegerilor din România oferă speranţa unui viitor al toleranţei

Deci un viitor al tolerantei?! Era cumva pusa sub semnul intrebarii?  E pe la noi un partid precum UKIP sau Jobick?!
Dar sa continuam:

„În unele privințe, România este mai puțin expusă decât vecinii ei la presiunea rusă. Depinde mai puțin de energia rusească. Ca națiune latină care cândva a pierdut teritorii în fața Uniunii Sovietice, este imună la panslavism și nu-și face iluzii despre modul în care Kremlinul folosește puterea. Cu toate aceastea, din când în când se aude că politicieni români de rang înalt exprimă în particular ideea de a face o înțelegere cu președintele Vladimir Putin ce ar oferi Rusiei dominația permanentă asupra sud-estului Ucrainei”, scrie autorul articolului, Tony Barber. „Dl Iohannis e puțin probabil să se joace cu astfel de idei. Capolitician de centru-dreapta, etnic german, are relații excelente cu Angela Merkel. Împărtășește aceleași vederi în privința pericolului reprezentat nu numai de intervenția Rusiei în Ucraina, dar și în ceea ce privește sprijinul pentru Transnistria. În mandatul lui Iohannis, este de așteptat ca România să contribuie la o poziție mai coerentă și mai unită a UE împotriva Rusiei”

Hmm, vedeti boldirile!!  Cam ce va sugereaza?! Auz?

Ma rog, ala Barbieru scrie si cum ca FT subliniază că Iohannis nu poate schimba totul peste noapte, dar ascensiunea sa la Preşedinţie este un semn că politicienii nu vor scăpa probabil nepedepsiţi pentru abuzul de putere.  Dar este de presupus ca inteligentii de votaci iohanisti nu prea resusesc sa intelaga asta.  Cum zicea si aia Gorghiu ca amici de ai ei au asteptari infinite .. iar “Westu” asteapta ce? Sa forteze cumva pe Angelika sa nu mai cumpere gaze de la rusi?!

Ei... gutzanii care au stat ore in sir la coada o sa patza ca cu specialistii lu Emil. Ca au asteptat sa li se dea si ni s-a luat!!

Da observati ce scrie asta : ascensiunea sa la Preşedinţie este un semn că politicienii nu vor scăpa probabil nepedepsiţi pentru abuzul de putere.   Adica se cer niste motzoci. E nevoie de detalii?!

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reconquista a fost tinta

Cat ne va lua sa ne dezmeticim si sa incepem a intelege ce s-a intamplat? S-a castigat/pierdut la prea mare diferenta pe care s-o pot pune pe seama prostiilor lui Ponta. In orice caz, a scrie numai de prostiile lui Ponta si a ignora inadecvarea lui Johannis este de doua ori gresit...

Am crezut ca anticorpi romanesti s-au format in spatele acestei candidaturi a lui Ponta. Se pare ca nu, cel putin nu in cantitate suficienta. PSDul ca mare partid de pe platforma caruia s-ar fi putut monta o reconquista cred ca a fost tinta.  Desigur, nu in persoana lui Ponta as fi vazut salvatorul, dar Johannis va fi cu atat mai putin, ca doar nu cred/em in Fat Frumos...

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"Clasa politică apare ca un veritabil detaşament al legiunii străine"

Prof. dr. Constantin Ciutacu, fost ministru secretar de stat, neimplicat politic, actualmente director la Institutul de Economie al Academiei Române


Am trăit, ca într-un vis, un sfert de secol de speranţe neîmplinite. Când s-au dus anii? Suntem şi mai săraci şi un pic mai bătrâni… Statul este bolnav, iar economia, câtă a mai rămas, este din nou în recesiune; firmele dau faliment cu miile pe semestru, investiţiile scad vertiginos, capitalismul autohton are, cum se spune într-un film, o „reţetă secretă”, originală, dar pierzătoare, la fel ca democraţia. România nu este, cum ne-am fi aşteptat, „tigrul” economic al Europei Centrale şi de Est. Cine ne-a pus beţe în roate? Nu căutaţi răspunsuri pe Google. Cauza e aici, la noi, în perfidia cu care ne-au dirijat politicienii români. Niciodată, în istorie, clasa politică românească n-a fost mai ruptă de popor şi mai puţin iubitoare de ţară. Un fost ministru secretar de stat, neimplicat politic, actualmente director la Institutul de Economie al Academiei Române, Constantin Ciutacu, are curajul să pună degetul pe multe dintre rănile care ne dor de 25 de ani.

„În 1989, infrastructura industrială situa România în primele 10 ţări din Europa”

Mulţi au uitat, alţii n-au ştiut niciodată… Cum stătea România, din punctul de vedere al integrării economice cu ţările dezvoltate, în 1989?

În 1989, infrastructura industrială situa România în primele 10 ţări din Europa. Exista platforma Pipera, creată de francezi, unde se construiau calculatoare. Autocamioanele şi autobuzele fabricate la Braşov şi Bucureşti erau patente germane. Avioanele Rombac erau cumpărate de la englezi. Locomotivele de la Electroputere Craiova erau patent elveţian. La Reşiţa se fabricau motoare de vapoare după licenţa Renk din Germania. Centrala nucleară de la Cernavodă provenea din Canada. Putem spune, şi nu suntem nostalgici, că începusem să ne integrăm acceptabil cu economiile mari ale lumii. România era a treia ţară din lume, după SUA şi Japonia, care fabrica anvelope gigant pentru autobasculante de peste 110 tone. Doar două ţări din lume făceau şuruburi cu bile: România şi Japonia. Acestea se foloseau în industria nucleară şi aerospaţială.

În 1990, Petre Roman a afirmat că industria românească era un „morman de fiare vechi”. Ce am avut şi ce am pierdut în ultimii 25 de ani, domnule ministru?

A fost cea mai nefericită declaraţie de politician de după 1989, care ne urmăreşte până azi. Referindu-se la industrie, că e de dat la fier vechi, fostul prim-ministru dorea să spună lumii că întreaga economie a României comuniste nu merita doi bani. Ale cui interese le-a servit această etichetă? Rămâne o pagină de istorie. Ca să combatem această viziune, cităm date statistice la întâmplare, din diferite domenii: România producea 14 milioane de tone de oţel în 1985; azi, doar 3 milioane. Producea 400.000 tone de aluminiu în anul 2000, o prelungire surprinzătoare a succesului din timpul dictaturii. Azi produce pe jumătate. Eram recunoscuţi ca buni constructori de motoare electrice şi produceam, în 1980, 19 milioane de kilowaţi, faţă de 700.000 kilowaţi, cât producem în prezent. Ieşeau pe poarta fabricilor 1.600 de excavatoare în 1980; niciunul azi. Ieşeau 71.000 de tractoare; niciunul azi (am construit fabrici de tractoare în Egipt şi Iran, care funcţionează şi acum, în timp ce în România au murit). Fabricam 600 de vagoane de pasageri pe an în 1984; azi, niciunul. Cât despre vagoanele de marfă, construiam 14.000 de bucăţi pe an; azi, abia 800 (cel puţin 100.000 vagoane de marfă au fost tăiate şi vândute la fier vechi în ultimii ani). În fine, produceam 144 de nave de tonaje diferite; azi, după cum se ştie, nu mai producem niciuna. Sticlăria e prăbuşită. Săpunul a dispărut (Palmolive a plecat). De altfel, potrivit statisticii oficiale, după anul 2000, au fost exportate 50 de milioane de tone de „fier vechi”, „deşeuri” de cupru, aluminiu şi alte neferoase, în valoare de peste 10 miliarde de euro! Am exportat lemn brut în valoare de peste 8 miliarde de euro, şi alte produse brute (cereale, fructe, animale vii etc.) în valoare de alte 5 miliarde de euro! Prelucrarea acestora în România ar fi însemnat crearea a milioane de locuri de muncă!

„Practic, întreaga economie naţională a fost oferită fără nici o logică şi fără a se spune cel puţin că este cadou sau pradă de război”

Ameţitoare cifre… Cum stau lucrurile în domeniul petrolului?

Iată situaţia la zi în domeniul petrolului: România producea 13 milioane de tone de petrol în 1970, şi numai… 6 milioane azi. Suspect. Cineva nu raportează corect. Nu am nici o încredere în această cifră, atât timp cât nu ştiu dacă toate sondele au contoar. Au contoar, domnilor? Trebuie să plătească redevenţe la tona de ţiţei brut, dar dacă scoţi 8-10 milioane de tone şi raportezi numai 6? Cu cât păgubeşti statul? Petrolul se scoate mult şi se rafinează în alte ţări. De aici, deduceţi consecinţele. Înainte de 1989, produceam 8,5 milioane de tone de motorină, şi mai producem doar 2 milioane. Produceam 10 milioane de tone de păcură. Nu mai producem nimic. Produceam 500.000 de tone de uleiuri minerale. Azi, nimic. Pe de altă parte, aţi observat că nici distribuţia gazelor nu mai este a noastră. Cine măsoară producţia? Cine măsoară distribuţia?

După 1990 s-a schimbat, deci, peisajul industrial. S-a creat o falie între marea şi mica industrie. De ce s-a întâmplat acest fenomen?

Au venit „sfaturi” de la competitorii nostri europeni: faceţi IMM-uri, întreprinderi mici şi mijlocii, daţi afară muncitorii din marile uzine, închideţi mamuţii industriali. Produceţi kit-uri, componente, nu produse integrale. Faceţi cabluri, radiatoare, sisteme de frânare şi anvelope, nu locomotive şi tractoare. Parcă intenţionat, nu a existat o viziune politică de dezvoltare, ci doar una pentru distrugere; guvernanţii şi-au îndeplinit misiunea cu exces de zel. Nu mă poate convinge nimeni pe mine că nu a fost totul pe bază de program, o teorie a conspiraţiei. UE a fost creată pe baza comunităţii economice a Cărbunelui şi Oţelului. Deci, România nu putea să intre în grila europeană cu industria siderurgică de 14 milioane tone de oţel. A trebuit lichidată şi ca un „bonus” pentru admiterea în UE.

Care au fost primele mari greşeli istorice ale politicienilor, în urma cărora s-a dat startul la jaful naţional?

Prima a fost restituirea „părţilor sociale” - o privatizare pe bani adevăraţi, începută surprinzător de Ceauşescu. FSN-ul a restituit aceşti bani pentru a cumpăra bunăvoinţa oamenilor, chiar cu banii lor! Această măsură anti-economică, din cauza căreia fabricile şi uzinele au rămas fără capital lichid, a condus, de fapt, la excluderea cetăţenilor de la un drept de proprietate plătit cu munca lor; a fost o re-naţionalizare a unei părţi a capitalului social, destinată ulterior şi cedării controlului economiei către interese de grup, mai ales străine. A doua mare eroare a fost privatizarea „de masă”, fără proceduri şi fără reguli de protecţie a acţionarilor minoritari; viitoarele certificate de acţionar au fost cumpărate pe nimic de cei care ştiau ce va urma. Atunci s-a spus că se privatizează numai 30% din capitalul societăţilor comerciale, lăsându-se de înţeles că vor mai primi şi restul de 70% în viitor, care viitor nu a sosit încă nici în anul 2014! S-a anunţat totodată că sectoarele strategice nu se vor privatiza. Dar au venit pe urmă FMI, Banca Mondială şi societăţile externe de consultanţă, care au dictat, şi guvernele au promovat, controlul total, fără luptă, şi fără niciun câştig, asupra întregii economii. Practic, economia naţională a fost oferită fără nici o logică şi fără a se spune cel puţin că este cadou sau pradă de război, celor care, chipurile, au făcut lobby pentru integrarea României în Uniunea Europeană.

„«Veniţi în România, că vă garantăm sclavia pe bani puţini şi vă menţineţi competitivitatea». Acesta a fost, în esenţă, programul de guvernare al ultimilor 25 de ani”

Vă rog să continuaţi descrierea peisajului economic românesc de azi, la 25 de ani de la răsturnarea „dictaturii de dezvoltare”.

A dispărut întreg sectorul industriei de textile, confecţii, tricotaje (filaturi, ţesătorii, fabrici de stofă şi postavuri, întreprinderi de pielărie şi încălţăminte, toate concepute într-un sistem integrat); a fost închis sectorul agroalimentar (36 fabrici de zahăr, fabricile de ulei, de preparate din carne, de lapte şi produse lactate, zeci de fabrici de nutreţuri combinate etc.); nu mai sunt majoritatea fabricilor din industria lemnului şi mobilei, din industria cimentului, a lacurilor şi vopselelor, a medicamentelor, din sectorul construcţiilor de maşini, al exploatărilor miniere de feroase şi neferoase, de cărbune etc.; s-au desfiinţat întreprinderile agricole de stat şi cele de mecanizare a agriculturii, staţiunile de cercetări agricole şi, în general, marea majoritate a institutelor de cercetare-proiectare; au dispărut industria electronică, electrotehnică, de mecanică fină, optică, automatizări etc. Baza naţională de soiuri de plante şi rase de animale a fost pulverizată. România nu mai are astăzi un pachet naţional de seminţe, soiuri, hibrizi, de culturi cerealiere, plante tehnice, legume etc. A fost distrus aproape în totalitate sistemul de irigaţii, construit prin îndatorarea dureroasă de la Banca Mondială, pentru a cărei plată românii au contribuit zeci de ani; au fost abandonate programele de combatere a eroziunii solului, de îndiguiri şi desecări, dar şi cele de irigaţii în curs (canalul Siret-Dunăre sau Bucureşti-Dunăre). Întreaga economie naţională a fost pur şi simplu pulverizată şi lăsată fără nicio logică structurală.

Care sunt consecinţele asupra populaţiei, derivate din acest peisaj apocaliptic, desprins parcă dintr-un film SF cu „terminatori”?

Treptat, România s-a transformat într-un paradis al multinaţionalelor care controlează industria, agricultura, transporturile, construcţiile, comerţul, sectorul financiar-bancar etc. şi care îşi promovează reglementări legale în interes propriu. Românilor le-au rămas întreprinderile mici şi mijlocii – de fapt, microîntreprinderile; dintre cele aproximativ 500.000 înregistrate, peste 200.000 nu au niciun angajat! Românii au astăzi libertatea să se ocupe de economia şi afacerile de subzistenţă; astăzi, avem şi industrie de subzistenţă, nu doar agricultură; şi construcţii şi transporturi şi alte servicii de subzistenţă, pretinzând că acţionăm pentru dezvoltare inteligentă, inovativă şi durabilă. Nimic nu este mai durabil decât subzistenţa, aceasta este strategia noastră naţională, după ce am făcut praf marile companii. Brandul României este subzistenţa, atât în interiorul ţării, cât şi pe celelalte pieţe ale muncii unde lucrează cetăţenii români. Nici după 25 de ani, clasa politică, veritabil detaşament al legiunii străine, terminatorul României moderne, nu a realizat importanţa unei reglementări prin care salariaţii să-şi investească o parte din salariu în compania proprie. Întreaga economie putea fi salvată prin participarea financiară a salariaţilor, printr-o reglementare prin care salariile reinvestite să fie scutite de impozite şi contribuţii.

A existat, în toţi aceşti ani, un fir roşu care să lege cele 13 guverne ce s-au perindat pe la Palatul Victoria, de un proiect minimal, coerent de dezvoltare?

Fireşte că nu a existat! Zi de zi, guvernele şi clasa politică s-au ocupat numai de protejarea aşa-zişilor investitori strategici, prin scutirea de impozit pentru profitul reinvestit, şi nu de promovarea facilităţilor destinate salariilor reinvestite. Investitorii nu ar fi trebuit să primească niciun sprijin în România, pentru a-i plăti pe angajaţii români cu salariul minim sau pentru a-i angaja la negru, din raţiuni de competitivitate. „Veniţi în România, că vă garantăm sclavia pe bani puţini şi vă menţineţi competitivitatea!”. Acesta a fost, în esenţă, programul de guvernare al ultimilor 25 de ani. De altfel, se poate spune că fiecare program de guvernare anunţat a fost un program de neguvernare.

Care sunt predicţiile dv. pentru următorii 25 de ani din viaţa economică a României?

Dacă şi în următoarele două decenii şi jumătate guvernul nu va putea să cumpere, din banii proprii, de 1 milion de lei piramidon, vaccinuri sau aspirină din producţia internă, fără avizul FMI sau al Comisiei Europene, România poate să dispară din peisajul statelor din Europa, rămânând un simplu indicator geografic.

Clasa politica este Coloana a Va in razboiul impotriva romanilor

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Cum isi castiga George Maior galoanele de general?

ARAD, Romania — He reveled in tormenting members of the Bush family, Colin L. Powell and a host of other prominent Americans, and also in outfoxing the F.B.I. and the Secret Service, foiling their efforts to discover even his nationality, never mind his identity. Early this year, however, the elusive online outlaw known as Guccifer lost his cocky composure and began to panic.

He smashed his hard drive and cellphone with an ax.

That spasm of precautionary destruction, at his home in Romania’s rural Transylvania region, did not help him much — especially as he left pieces of what would later become evidence scattered in the mud.

Two weeks later, on Jan. 22, a global hunt for the celebrated and mysterious hacker who first revealed self-portraits painted by George W. Bush and plundered a trove of personal emails from politicians, military officers and celebrities finally ended in an early morning raid of his home.

“I was expecting them, but the shock was still very big for me,” the hacker, now serving a seven-year sentence, said. He spoke in an interview, his first, at the Arad Penitentiary here. “It is hard to be a hacker, but even harder to erase your tracks.”

In many ways, however, his two-year rampage through the email accounts of rich and powerful Americans showed how easy it can be to go rogue on the Internet and, even when armed with only rudimentary skills, to stay one step ahead of the law, at least for a while.

The hacker who signed off as Guccifer (pronounced GUCCI-fer) — a nom de guerre coined, he said, to combine “the style of Gucci and the light of Lucifer” — turned out to be Marcel-Lehel Lazar, a jobless 43-year-old former taxi driver. He had no expertise in computers, no fancy equipment, only a clunky NEC desktop and a Samsung cellphone, and no special skills beyond what he had picked up on the web.

Viorel Badea, the Romanian prosecutor who directed the case, expressed dismay that Mr. Lazar had gotten so far with so little. “He was not really a hacker but just a smart guy who was very patient and persistent,” Mr. Badea said.

Instead of burrowing into his victims’ email accounts using computer worms and other hacking tools, the prosecutor said, Mr. Lazar trawled the web for information about his targets and then simply guessed the right answers to security questions. “He is just a poor Romanian guy who wanted to be famous,” said the prosecutor, who leads a cybercrime team in Romania’s organized crime unit.

It took six months of trial and error for Mr. Lazar to guess the right answers and gain access to the emails of Corina Cretu, a 47-year-old Romanian politician who sent pictures of herself in a bikini and a flirtatious message to Mr. Powell, the former secretary of state. Mr. Powell, who has denied having an affair with Ms. Cretu, had urged her to delete all their messages after he discovered that his own email account had been hacked.

Mr. Lazar, who is half-Hungarian, acknowledged that he relied mostly on educated guesswork. He said he had no training in computers, though he did work, briefly, in a computer factory. “I got fired after two weeks,” he said.

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To cover his tracks, he launched most of his raids through a proxy server in Russia. He figured that would hide any fingerprints leading back to Romania, where he already had a police record. That followed a 2011 conviction for hacking into the email accounts of Romanian starlets and other celebrities under the name Micul Fum, or Little Smoke.

Mr. Lazar was so confident of his ability to elude detection that, late last year, he started boasting of his exploits to The Smoking Gun, an American website that on Jan. 6 posted a defiant email message in broken English from the still unidentified Guccifer: “NO I am not concerned, i think i switch the proxies go to play some backgammon on yahoo watch tv, play with my family and daughter.”

A day later, however, Mr. Lazar got a shock when George Maior, the head of Romania’s domestic intelligence agency, announced that the authorities would soon catch America’s most wanted hacker, a vow that suggested they knew he was in Romania. Mr. Lazar, in his prison interview, said he was also badly shaken by Mr. Maior’s description of him as “Little Guccifer,” which to him indicated that investigators had linked Guccifer with Little Smoke, the pseudonym he used before his 2011 arrest.

Thrown into a panic, he decided it was time to destroy evidence of his hacking and took an ax to his computer and cellphone in his yard in the village of Sambateni, about 11 miles east of Arad, the Transylvanian city where he is now in prison. “I knew they were coming for me,” he recalled. “My sixth sense told me I was surrounded. I was losing control of the situation.”

In reality, the authorities still had little idea who Guccifer was. Mr. Maior, in an interview in Bucharest, the Romanian capital, said he was not aware that Guccifer was the same person as Little Smoke, and had merely called him “little” to “minimize his aura of un-catchability.” The authorities, Mr. Maior said, did not even know at the time that Guccifer was Romanian.

But they had suspected he might be since September, when Guccifer hijacked a personal email account used by Mr. Maior, the security chief, and then used it to send Romanian-language messages to Mr. Maior’s official email account at the Romanian Intelligence Service.

Mr. Maior promptly ordered an investigation. “It was clear he had broken into my email,” Mr. Maior said. “He wanted to prove something. I took it seriously.”

Aided by American investigators, who had been hunting in vain for Guccifer for months, the Romanians quickly homed in on Mr. Lazar, who had left a clumsy trail of clues.

“He made many mistakes,” Mr. Badea, the prosecutor, said.

Mr. Lazar said he could have covered his tracks better if he had had more money — for a more powerful computer, for instance.

“Of course, I could have stolen money from them,” he said, distancing himself from the legions of his countrymen who have made Romania, the second-poorest country in the 28-member European Union, a global leader in Internet fraud. “I didn’t. Not a single dollar.”

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An American indictment filed against Mr. Lazar in Virginia in June accused him of trying to extort “money and property by means of materially false and fraudulent representations, pretenses and promises” to his American victims, but Romanian investigators say they found no evidence of extortion.

Romanian officials say the United States has not asked Romania to extradite Mr. Lazar but has sent investigators to question him to learn how he managed to prey on so many powerful Americans. The United States Justice Department declined to comment.

Before agreeing to answer questions from The New York Times in prison, where he shares a cell with four others, including two convicted murderers, he read out a lengthy handwritten statement that he said explained the purpose of his hacking.

A potpourri of conspiracy theories about the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, the 1997 death of Princess Diana and alleged plans for a nuclear attack in Chicago in 2015, it said: “This world is run by a group of conspirators called the Council of Illuminati, very rich people, noble families, bankers and industrialists from the 19th and 20th century.”

Mr. Badea, the Romanian prosecutor, scoffed at Mr. Lazar’s fixation on so-called Illuminati as a ruse intended to give a political gloss to a peeping-tom hacking addiction. The hacking exploits that led to his 2011 conviction involved “no Illuminati, just famous and beautiful girls,” the prosecutor said.

Mr. Lazar denied any interest in celebrities, asserting that he had only stumbled on most of the people he hacked as Guccifer, a long list that included the actress Mariel Hemingway, the “Sex and the City” author Candace Bushnell, the editor Tina Brown, the comedian Steve Martin, the author Kitty Kelley and many others.

With no access to a computer in jail, he now pours out his phobias and conspiracy theories in notebooks filled with his small, neat handwriting. “O.K., I broke the law, but seven years in a maximum-security prison? I am not a murderer or a thief,” he said. “What I did was right, of course.”

Anne New York City
7 years for a prankster, no time for the banksters.


Impedimentus Nuuk
Computer crime is only noteworthy when it is directed at the elites.


Uzi Nogueira Florianopolis, SC
And to think tons of US taxpayers money is being spent to pay for the most expensive hacking system in the world, NSA and Prism.

This Guccifer guy -- unemployed taxi driver turned hacker -- operating a beat up computer in Romania raises an important point. The cyberspace is a target rich environment for asymmetrical warfare. This makes powerful countries vulnerable and backward countries dangerous.



seeing with open eyes usa
I wonder if our government spent as much time and money finding the hackers who got into Home Depot and Target customer accounts as it did to find this guy who uncovered celebrity bad behavior.


Michael Olenick Paris, France
I'd prefer that neither paranoid sociopaths nor paranoid governments spy on me. It's notable that even with billions of dollars in technology the NSA couldn't catch an already known hacker (the Romanians found him) who had little technology, money, training, or resources.


Mike Cornelison The OC
Guccifer gets seven years, still no accountability at the NSA? What Guccifer did was frivolous and miniscule compared to the scale and scope of the NSA collecting all our emails and phone calls. The potential for abuse could make the handful of people J. Edgar Hoover was blackmailing seem quaint by comparison.

Never put your faith in the idea that the data collection of every American citizen is necessary for our security and will only be used for good. If there was any good in our leaders, these enemies of the Fourth Amendment would have already been brought to justice.


Olivier Tucson
This man is a bit of a voyeur to be sure. He attempted no fraud, no theft. He gets 7 years in prison. The bankers who ripped us off got nothing. Sad commentary.


Patrick MacKellan Los Angeles CA
7 years for stealing bikini pictures etc. and doing so using no sophisticated or nefarious techniques. If he has stolen his neighbor's bikini pictures from her email would he have gotten the same jail sentence? You know the answer. He would not even have been prosecuted. Our entire world order does one thing only: protect the elite.



Keith USA
Pity the fool who seeks to torment the rich and powerful.


Murph Eastern CT
The Internet still suffers from a technology that assumes everyone is honest and will treat everyone else honorably--a technology that made at least a little sense before our bank accounts and personal lives became connected to the entire world.

We all need a more secure system. Our social security numbers (or national identity numbers in other countries) can no longer be depended upon to correctly identify us and not someone else. It's uncommonly easy for someone who is up to no good to look up our mother's maiden name, or where we went to high school.

The best we can do for now is invent totally bogus answers (that only we know) to those ubiquitous "security questions" and use those instead of the real answers (and make sure to use different bogus answers for different websites).

Where can I buy stock in the providers of apps that encrypt all those passwords and identity statements under a single (very difficult to crack) password?



jane ny 13
What a asset this man could have been if he had been on the right side of the law. Tenacity, a well-honed sixth sense, intelligence....

Take note America: when we don't value the lives of our children through affordable health care and good education we lose our most valuable assets and feed the underworld.


Gregory Boston
This poor man has a paraphrenia (paranoid but not schizophrenic in the classic sense) - his paranoias are reality based. He is not nefarious, nor evil. It's a shame to see such vigorous responses aimed at this individual when the flaw is systematic. And if anyone is narcissistic, it is those who believe their electronic communications posted in cyberspace are "private".



John O'Hanlon Salt Lake City
"Internet security" is an oxymoron. Everything you do online is subject to "legal hacking" by the government of whatever country you happen to inhabit. From there, the same systems are open to exploit by almost anyone who has the inclination to go for it.

This fellow happens to be one of the few who exposed how easy it is to crack the false patina of security while actually doing no more than disrupting the routines of his targets. His hacks actually were good in the sense that awareness of how stupidly easy it was for him to work may spread into people's minds and they will routinely change their passwords and security answers on those types of accounts with high frequency.

I think all of us are still waiting for the truthful story of how a bunch of people looted the system and brought the U.S. economy to the brink of total collapse in 2008 and simply got away with it. None of those guys have been charged and they have been able to keep the billions they all made prior to the collapse of their real estate shell games.

Meanwhile, this one guy is in prison in Transylvania, of all places, for seven years and the authorities are acting like it's some major breakthrough.

What a joke. One guy.

Hey, by the way - who hacked Target and the Home Depot, oh, and J.P. Morgan Chase?

Right. You don't know.



Steve Austin Hopkinsville KY
We are all so very proud of our intellect and our nation's technologies and our own gadgets. We have such an advanced technological national defense system that we never imagine that we are in any sort of personal danger from anything.

Yet mankind is always one slip, one impulse from barbarism, from the worst cruelties. Stars in our culture are never the religious or the highly educated - they are judged by appearances, pretty words, and being ''edgy.''

Even elitists and their fans smile as a female political candidate, Sarah Palin, is called the worst names in our language. Had she been physically attacked, can we honestly say whether most of our proudly educated ''in crowd'' would have regretted it?

We have outrun our moral headlights in this age. We have pride where we should have self-knowledge, and so when the lure of money and power come around, we jump up and offer ourselves. As Garrison Keillor once said, if pride were kindling, we could heat an entire church in winter.


DD Los Angeles
"An American indictment filed against Mr. Lazar in Virginia in June accused him of trying to extort “money and property by means of materially false and fraudulent representations, pretenses and promises” to his American victims"

There is absolutely ZERO evidence this guy did ANY of that. Such a typically stupid reaction by American prosecutors, who don't need facts or evidence to beat down anyone they set their sights on. Just throw out accusation after accusation, make up 'facts' and 'evidence', then push for a 'deal' so they don't actually have to go to court to prove any of it.

This is how American justice works now - use the might and money of the government to intimidate anyone without the resources to fight back, because when people DO have the resources to fight back, the government almost always loses. Gotta keep that win ratio high to get promotions and raises, which is what it's mostly about.

When prosecutors have skin in the game, there is no justice.



EA Dallas TX
Funny. American intelligence copies all phone calls and internet communication, Yet uneducated hackers can break into G Bush’s and Colin Powell’s emails. Maybe our resources are misplaced. Funny. Too funny. Colin Powell emails Romanian official who send pic of herself in a bikini. Too funny.
Unfunny. Then they file an indictment of extortion when the man never asked for money nor made a $1 off his capers. Too unfunny. Honesty is not in vogue except for the poor & uneducated and slightly disturbed. Punishment, yes but 7 years?


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