Posted on 01/12/2006 7:30:06 PM PST by Straight Vermonter
Vladimir Zhirinovsky, deputy speaker of the Russian State Duma and leader of the ultra-nationalist Liberal Democratic Party has suggested that the Soviet Union and 
its surrogate states would have been justified to kill Pope John Paul II who, he claims, was planted in the Vatican by the CIA to wrest Poland from its pro-Soviet rulers. In an interview with a Russian radio statio, on the day the Pope's would-be assassin, Ali Agca, was released from an Istanbul jail, Zhirinovsky was asked whether the KGB, had commissioned the attack.
"There is no direct evidence necessarily of a Russian connection here, but it was not to our liking that a Pole became Pope in Rome, in that it was done specially by the CIA and by the USA to influence the situation in Poland through a Pole, the Pope of Rome, and this succeeded" he replied.
"The West tried to influence the situation in a socialist country, Poland, using external factors. The task was to knock it out from the community of socialist countries and, in the final analysis, this did happen. They started this in 1980 and in 1989, nine years later, that country, to all intents and purposes, was one of those which split the entire socialist camp" said Zhirinovsky.
Asked by the presenter of Ekho Mosky radio why a Turk was chosen for the operation, Zhirinovsky said: "A Turk was chosen because the strongest organization in Turkey was the Grey Wolves. There was no such thing as Al-Qaeda or suchlike."
"The Turkish Grey Wolves was the most extremist organisation and it was easiest of all to recruit agents in Bulgaria, because it is full of Turks, and Bulgarian-Turkish relations made it possible to select a client to carry out this order. We cannot know for sure who issued the order".
Since Agca was arrested immediately after the attack, there has been much speculation about a Bulgarian connection, but a group of Bulgarians tried in Italy where later acquitted for lack of evidence.
Had the attempt to kill the Pope succeeded, Zhirinovskiy told Ekho Mosky, "there would have been less by way of influence over Poland and Poland would have remained in the USSR's orbit for longer."
"So what if the Pope is a spiritual leader?" the hardline nationalist politician continued. "The point at issue was his Polish origin. No-one was attacking the Roman Catholic Church, Rome or the Vatican. After all, he was specially put in place there. There has never been a pope from Eastern Europe. We had a Spaniard, a German, but this was done specially...in order to influence Poland through this high spiritual post and to wrest it from the Soviet Union."
Zhirinovsky said "the USSR was defending itself. We have been under attack since 1917. I oppose Stalin and the Gulag but in terms of relations among states, it is we who are under attack. We have to defend ourselves."
The presenter asked whether part of this defence was "to shoot like terrorists" and Zhirinovsky answered: "Yes, [we must defend ourselves] even through shooting, like John Kennedy's assassination, where a Cuban involvement is suspected. But how many times did the Americans want to kill Fidel Castro? Hundreds of times."
I have nothing against Catholics. On the contrary, I've found many strong believers to reside within that history. I also find a number of religious antiChristians to have been associated with the religion, be they enemies of the Cross or simply legalists, or fallen away into religiousity and not in a grace orientation.
Zhirinovsky is a bonafied crazy.
Zhirinovsky spills the beans!
And we thought we had some crazy politicians.
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