Posted on 06/19/2007 4:43:36 PM PDT by DAVEY CROCKETT
Saudi King Says Middle East Crisis Will Affect The World
DUBAI, June 19 (Bernama) -- The Saudi king has warned of an impending "explosion" in the Middle East, saying that it will not only affect the region but will spread all over the world, the English daily Gulf News reports.
"The Middle East region suffers from the longest conflict in our contemporary history which is the Palestinian-Israeli conflict and Israel's occupation of Arab lands," King Abdullah Bin Abdul Aziz, said in an interview with the Spanish El Pas newspaper which was published simultaneously in Al Riyadh newspaper yesterday.
"At this point in time we are exerting efforts to solve this conflict, but we are witnessing an expansion of the crisis to include other countries like Iraq and Lebanon," he said.
"This makes the region replete with troubles that pose grave concerns for us. My fears are the fears of all reasonable men that the explosive situation will not be confined to the region but will extend to the whole world," he added.
The Saudi monarch yesterday began a five-nation trip that will take him to Spain, France, Poland, Egypt and Jordan.
King Abdullah also underlined the importance of solving the problem of Iran's nuclear programme peacefully in a way that guarantees all countries in the region to use nuclear energy for peaceful purposes in accordance with the standards of the International Atomic Energy Agency.
http://www.bernama.com/bernama/v3/news_lite.php?id=268361
(Excerpt) Read more at bernama.com ...
[A post that charges to read its articles, leads to several interesting googles....granny]
[2001]
Extremists Said to Be Scrambling Messages on Web By Reuters, 2/6/2001
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Muslim extremists, including Saudi dissident Osama bin Laden, are posting encrypted — or scrambled — photographs and messages on popular Web sites and using them to plan attacks against the United States and its allies, USA TODAY reported Tuesday. The newspaper quoted U.S. law enforcement officials and experts as saying that extremists were using e-mail, computerized files, and encryption to hide maps and photographs of their targets, and instructions for carrying out attacks, on sports chat rooms, pornographic bulletin boards and otherWeb sites. The Internet has become a new form of the ‘’dead drop,’’ a Cold War-eraterm for where spies left information, the paper quoted officials assaying. They said the messages were scrambled using free encryption programs setup by groups that advocate privacy on the Internet. Those same programs also can hide maps and photographs in an existing image on selected Web sites. The e-mails and images can only be decrypted using a ‘’privatekey,’’ or code, selected by the recipient. USA TODAY said officials cited security concerns in declining to namesites where such material had been hidden. Experts said, however, it was difficult for law enforcement agencies to intercept the messages. Bin Laden, a dissident Saudi businessman, has been indicted for the 1998 bombing of two U.S. embassies in East Africa and has been named as a possible suspect behind last fall’s bombing of the USS Cole destroyer inYemen. Four alleged bin Laden associates went on trial Monday in federal courtin New York for the embassy bombings. ‘’To a greater and greater degree, terrorist groups, including Hezbollah, Hamas, and bin Laden’s al Qaida group, are using computerized files, e-mail, and encryption to support their operations,’’ CIA Director George Tenet wrote last March to a closed-door session of the Senate ForeignRelations Committee, according to the USA TODAY report. Officials say bin Laden began using encryption five years ago, but recently increased its use after U.S. officials revealed they were tapping his satellite telephone calls in Afghanistan and tracking his activities.
‘’We will use whatever tools we can — e-mails, the Internet — tofacilitate jihad against the (Israeli) occupiers and their supporters,’’ the paper quoted Sheik Ahmed Yassin, the founder of the militant Muslim group Hamas, as saying in a recent interview in the Gaza Strip. ‘’We have the best minds working with us.’’
http://www.wlhoward.com/id566.htm
Excellent old article page, WW2 and other subjects.
http://www.wlhoward.com/id566.htm
Butteryfly Winter- Subject: Kinderschreck -
Butterfly Bombs A genuine example of kinderschreck was the German dropping of “butterfly bombs” on Britain early in WWII. Thees explosive devices were constructed to pop open on landing to display brightly-coloured wings. They were dropped widely by parachute, often in open country. The idea was that children (or adults) would be curious enough to touch them, triggering the explosive booby-trap. Several people were killed by them, though I do not now recall the number victims now. A massive information programme warning Britons to stay away from the butterfly bombs seems to have to have neutered their effect. For whatever reason, the Luftwaffe ceased dropping them. — Sidney.
The butterfly bomb was a small HE-fragmentation charge, cylindrical-shaped, about 1 pound, maybe less. It was housed in a two-piece cover. They were dropped in cluster bombs. When released from the cluster bomb’s housing the bomblet’s own housing popped open in the air giving the appearance of wings (half a cylindrical cover with one end piece attached). Projecting from the top of the HE charge was a threaded 12 or 14-inch rod. The two halves of the cover were attached to the rod and would spin up the rod until they reached the top. At this point the bomblets was armed. The open housing halves also slowed the bomblet’s speed and helped disperse them. They were supposed to detonate upon impact. Many failed (defective) or were damaged upon impact. Anyone tampering with one, and kids do this sort of thing, might set one off. The housing (wings) and the charge were yellow with black markings, which were the standard colors for HE bombs. They did not really look like butterflies, they were not painted pretty colors to attract children, and were not intended as booby traps. I will grant that it is possible that some Luftwaffe unit(s) may have painted bomblets bright colors for this purpose, but I’ve never seen any proof of this. The problem is that they do not look like bombs and kids will pick up anything. The rest I think is propaganda and misconceptions. The US copied the German butterfly bombs and used them in their own cluster bombs and were accused of the exact same thing by the Germans, and the North Koreans, and the North Vietnamese. The early US ones were even yellow, but later OD with yellow markings. Gordon These devices are not to be confused by the German “schmetterling” anti-personnel bombs which had vanes (wings) to arm the bombs. Somewhere in my files is a photo of the coloured Butterfly Bomb dropped by the Luftwaffe on Britain. ‘Cannot find it right now. Instead, here is an account I found on the Internet by a man who was schoolboy in England during WWII and recollects the anti-kid bombs: He says:
” At school we were warned of the dangers of picking up well disguised German anti personnel bombs. Some of these were called butterfly bombs as they were painted in bright colours, waiting for a child to pick it up and get a hand blown off. On the school notice board, between cricket team lists and revised lesson schedules, would be army posters depicting the different types of anti personnel bombs.” — Sidney.
Brightly colored wings? I don’t think so.
The butterfly bomb was a small HE-fragmentation charge, cylindrical-shaped, about 1 pound, maybe less. It was housed in a two-piece cover. They were dropped in cluster bombs. Gordon.
Yeah, yeah, Gordon. That’s the schmetterling butterfly anti-personnel bomb you are describing. Same name, but entirely different from the Butterfly Bomb I am referring to, a few of which incidentally I saw with my very own eyes at the time. Though it’s tempting to play Gotcha, this time it is simply a case of confusion between two different weapons of the same name, one of which you are not familiar with.
And you can see how confusion on the battlefield can cause problems .
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla%3Aen-US%3Aofficial&hs=nNS&q=The+Uses+of+Terror+B.+Levytsky&btnG=Search
The Supplement to The Modern Encyclopedia of Russian and Soviet History [will be very interesting if in english]
http://www.ai-press.com/SMERSH.01.contents.html
Very good links:
http://smersh.org/Links.html
Kunar battalion (# of military unit 93992) of the 66th separate infantry brigade of Dzhelalabad division moved to Novobad bridge across Kunar river on 15th May of 1983.
The task: companies # 8 and 9 were supposed to occupy commanding heights and blockade Nova ravine, the 7th company blockades Gandzhgal and Borugey ravines, where a special group of mine-layers would be installing sensors LRealiyaі. A battalion of Ltsarandoyі (Afghan forces) was given to Soviet units under indispensable condition that Afghan groups would be moving in advance of Soviet soldiers. continues......
http://artofwar.ru/g/grigorxew_w_a/text_0090.shtml
Vyacheslav Mironov. Assault on Grozny Downtown
http://artofwar.ru/m/mironow_w_n/text_0180.shtml
Mikhail Evstafiev. Two Steps From Heaven [Afghanistan/Russia]
http://artofwar.ru/e/ewstafxew_mihail_aleksandrowich/theafghanwindblowsagain.shtml
Index:
http://artofwar.ru/e/english/
Found 273 of Alex Jones' Bookmarks Tagged With "miscellaneous"
[I dig up the oddest things, several here worth checking out, as he did not write them, only saved them.....LOL...granny]
http://ma.gnolia.com/people/BaldTechnologist/tags/miscellaneous
I do not know! There are several here to check out, KGB to UFO:
http://www.lobster-magazine.co.uk/intro/search.cgi?zoom_query=pope&zoom_page=3&zoom_per_page=10&zoom_and=1&zoom_sort=0
Russia and the 'Star Wars':
http://www.netwrx1.com/skunk-works/v09.n092
Links to England's MI5 websites:
http://www.search.com/search/1/mi5_website.html?ref=related
Old articles to google:
http://72.14.253.104/search?q=cache:TDBG7E8p_nQJ:millercenter.virginia.edu/dev/ci/system/application/views/_newwebsite/about/staff/cvs/selverstone.pdf+IntelForum&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=44&gl=us&client=firefox-a
UNITED KINGDOM Spy Cases Andrew and Mitrokhin [will give good googles]
http://intellit.muskingum.edu/uk_folder/ukspycases_folder/ukspycasesmitrokhin.html
U.K. Spy Cases [several pages]
http://intellit.muskingum.edu/uk_folder/ukspycases_folder/ukspycasesfever.html
RUSSIA 1999 July - December
For reportage on the revelations in September 1999 about Soviet espionage operations in the West based on materials drawn from the "Mitrokhin Files," see "UK/SpyCases/September 1999." Materials arranged chronologically.
http://intellit.muskingum.edu/russia_folder/russia90s_folder/russia99_7-12.html
Index and more links to above:
http://intellit.muskingum.edu/alpha_folder/A_folder/andrewtoc.html
Military, History, and Foreign Affairs Sites
Here are some sites that provide useful and timely information on the topics of military and foreign affairs, especially in these troubled times (9/11/01 is a date we'll all remember).
This one looks very interesting, links to terror type info:
http://www.niwotridge.com/Resources/MilitaryandForeignAffair.htm
The gangs behind bars - prison gangs Insight on the News, Sept 28, 1998 by Tiffany Danitz
Prison gangs are flourishing across the country. Organized, stealthy and deadly, they are reaching out from their cells to organize and control crime in America's streets.
[This is an excellent article on prison gangs]
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1571/is_n36_v14/ai_21161641/pg_1
The Secret FISA Court: Rubber Stamping Our Rights By Philip Colangelo Covert Action Quarterly 11-27-00
2000 and interesting...granny
http://www.freerepublic.com/forum/a3a27337612f5.htm
THE CURSE OF THE KURSK [Interesting]
http://cryptome.sabotage.org/kursk.htm
Spy reports: [and terror]
http://www.borrull.org/e/noticia.php?id=2436&id2=95
[There are other related clips here also]
March 28: Russian intelligence agents are in Iraq, possibly to “evacuate” the Iraqi special services’ archives before Saddam Hussein’s regime falls, Nezavisimaya Gazeta reports. The agents, it claims, are in daily contact with their Iraqi counterparts and are trying to preempt the CIA and Britain’s MI-6, which have also sent agents into Iraq to get hold of the archives. The newspaper says that while the intelligence archives do not include weapons of mass destruction documentation, which the regime has already destroyed, they are important as a lever of influence in post-Saddam Iraq. Yevgeny Primakov, who was once Russia’s foreign intelligence chief, may have discussed the archives with the Iraqi leader during a February visit to Baghdad.
http://www.borrull.org/e/noticia.php?id=16241&id2=95
Many articles that look very interesting;
http://www.borrull.org/e/directori.php?id=95
Intelligence-Related Web Sites Non-Governmental Sites H - L
http://intellit.muskingum.edu/websites_folder/websitesngovh-l.html
Need to read this when I am not so tired:
KennedyÂ’s Comrade: Hunting a KGB Mole in the Democratic Party Original FReeper research | 10/23/2006 | Fedora Posted on 10/23/2006 2:07:13 PM PDT by Fedora
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1724508/posts
This is the google above was found in, many not looked at:
http://www.google.com/search?q=IntelForum&hl=en&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&start=50&sa=N
Links to intel websites:
http://intellit.muskingum.edu/websites_folder/websitestoc.html
Intel and history of intel links:
http://intellit.muskingum.edu/maintoc.html
http://intellit.muskingum.edu/index.html
Post #1 has links to the KGB visit by Kennedy:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1724508/posts
http://laurencejarvikonline.blogspot.com/2007/07/julia-gorin-on-kosovo.html
Julia Gorin has given permission to reprint the text of her recent article on Kosovo from the American Legion magazine:
The ‘Successful War’ we lost in Kosovo
America has itself to blame for giving terrorism a toehold in Europe
Until an Albanian plot to massacre American soldiers at Fort Dix was foiled in May, most eyes would glaze over at the mention of the obscure, forgotten war zone of Kosovo, currently a UN protectorate whose 90%-plus Albanian-Muslim majority is about to be handed independence from Serbia by the international community. Few Americans understand that, between Kosovo gaining independence and not, America’s soul hangs in the balance.
Nor is it widely known that the explosives used in the Madrid and London bombings, as well as those used in the recent attack on the U.S. embassy in Greece, came from Kosovo, a state-in-progress led by the violent, jihadist, narco-terrorist mafiosos of the Kosovo Liberation Army. The KLA was supposed to have disbanded and disarmed after the 1999 conflict. Instead, it has continued arming itself in the event that the province isn’t granted independence this year. It is a bin Laden-trained army of local clansmen, Marxists, university students and jihadists with whom the United States allied itself in 1999 against Serbia, an ally both in World War I and World War II.
“Balkan “blowback” is a term often used today to frame a problem that has not gone away but has grown more threatening and complex, with an independent Kosovo looming darkly on the horizon of the global war on terrorism. The blowback includes the Fort Dix plot, Madrid and the 2005 London Tube attack that was coordinated in Bosnia. It also includes the fact that Kosovo, like Bosnia, has become a one-stop terror shop, a haven and thoroughfare for wanted terror suspects, a source of “white al Qaeda” volunteers, and a world capital in drug and slave traffic. This would be reason enough to deny the majority-Muslim Albanians independence, which they’ve threatened to seize by force in any case.
It is hardly an exaggeration to say that a Serb a day is killed in Kosovo. Amid two million Albanians, the 100,000 Kosovo Serbs who haven’t yet fled, or have fled and returned, live in barbed-wire-enclosed, KFOR-guarded perimeters of a few kilometers—beyond which they dare not venture. When shot at by Albanians, NATO troops are directed to flee rather than return fire, which would draw attention to the province as unstable, exposing that there is the threat of violence should Albanians not get what they want. It all leads to the question, “Why are the people we went to war for shooting at us?”
NATO troops in Kosovo, to which a contingent of 1,500 National Guardsmen was added in November, know to avoid doing any real policing that could result in a firefight. This is how Serbian nuns continue to be killed and how Serbian property continues to be seized by Albanian squatters, how churches and monasteries continue to be destroyed, as Saudi-financed mosques take their place. In Kosovo, we didn’t fight to end racism and ethnic cleansing, as we were told. We enabled it.
Advocates for rewarding the violence with statehood tout the Kosovo Albanians as being “the most pro-American lot” there is. It’s a dubious endorsement for America if ever there were one.
When good will is acquired by doing someone’s bidding, pro-Americanism is won for the wrong reasons, and the gratitude will turn on a dime the moment we stop furthering that party’s agenda. In Kosovo, that began happening as early as 2000, when the Albanians started calling for the UN and NATO “occupiers” to get out.
When the architects of our Kosovo war brag that not a single American life was lost in what they describe as a “successful” war, the appropriate response is “Not yet.” The Albanian strategy in Kosovo has in fact been a replay of the Oslo Accords: accept the infidel’s help as long as it furthers your territorial ambitions, once the West is no longer willing to carry you to the next stage, turn on it. Our continued courtship of the “Kosovars” has been a mere postponement of inevitable enmity.
Albanians argue that their fight for Kosovo is not an Islamic movement but a national one. Palestinians make the same claim. But the big picture is the same: jihad. The day that Kosovo becomes “Kosova” – an invented pronunciation used by the Muslims, nationalists and vested politicians – is the day we’ve lost a key battle in the war on terror.
Meanwhile, reports have come one after the other raising questions about what really happened in the former Yugoslavia during the 1990s. Spanish forensic pathologist Emilio Perez Pujol went there in 1999 to report on the claims of genocide. He told London’s Sunday Times, Spain’s El Pais newspaper and other media afterward, “We did not find one – not one –mass grave…There never was a genocide in Kosovo.”
Continues.............
http://news.serbianunity.net/2007/07/27/3306/
Saudis financed terror in Kosovo, Serbianna
Posted By Sasa Sekulic On July 27, 2007 @ 1:09 am In News in English, Kosovo & Metohija | 1 Comment
July 26, 2007 - Confidential reports by the Central Intelligence Agency have found that a prominent Saudi banking family, Al Rajhi, is a major financier of jihadist activities in Kosovo and Bosnia and their bank, the Al Rajhi Bank, is the most favored bank by the world’s extremists to funnel money for violent Muslim activities across the globe.
“There is no reliable estimate of how much the Al Rajhis have given to promote Islam over the years,” assesses the Wall Street Journal after examining the secret CIA documents and concludes that the “overseas money went to aid embattled Muslims in Kosovo, Chechnya and the Palestinian territories and to finance Islamic instruction.”
The Journal says that in the aftermath of 9/11 the American officials agonized over what to do about the bank’s financing of terror.
The Al Rajhi name also came prominent in Bosnia after seizing the “golden chain” documents listing world’s major donors of such Jihad as in Bosnia and Kosovo.
“The list was authenticated for the Federal Bureau of Investigation… by America’s top judicial witness against al Qaeda, a onetime al Qaeda business manager named Jamal Al Fadl, who is in the federal witness-protection program. He called the contributor list the ‘golden chain.’, says the Wall Street Journal adding that:
“A 2003 German police report said Sulaiman Al Rajhi and other family members had contributed more than $200,000 in 1993 to a charity that financed weapons for Islamic militants in Bosnia, in addition to providing humanitarian aid.”
A Jidda-based charity called the International Islamic Relief Organization (IIRO), arranges for Muslim donors to send their money directly to the Al Rajhi Bank. The International Islamic Relief Organization has its branches in Kosovo.
The UN has labeled the IIRO branches and some of its officials as al Qaeda supporters.
According to a 2003 testimony at the US Senate, Jean-Charles Brisard says that the “Efforts to coordinate the recipients of money have been largely undermined by the composition and management of these bodies. For example, the Saudi Joint Relief Committee for Kosovo and Chechnya (SJRC) included the International Islamic Relief Organization (IIRO)”.
In April of 2000, NATO forces raided a house rented by the SJRC in Pristina, Kosovo, because the organization was acting as a cover for several Usama bin Laden operatives, including SJRC former directors Adel Muhammad Sadi Bin Kazem and Wael Hamza Julaidan who is the Secretary General of the Rabita Trust in Pakistan and co-founder of Al-Qaida, all designated as terrorist by the United States government in 2002.
According to the official publication of the Islamic Community in the Balkans, the Preporod, Saudis have promised financial support in the 1990s for waging jihad in the former Yugoslavia explicitly citing Bosnia and Kosovo as the Islamic targets of interest.
1 Comment To “Saudis financed terror in Kosovo, Serbianna”
#1 Comment By eric On July 27, 2007 @ 11:50 am
Sad to say we have a lot more enemies than president Bush says . Muslims believe the best muslims are the most willing muslims to give up their life for islam . Muslims can have all their sin forgiven if they kill a infidol . Albanians Loved president Clinton and president Bush loves Albanians . Albanians want to work closer with Iran . Condi Rice wants to help Albanians segragate from christians oneway or another . Is there any wonder America is turning libitarian or just plain antiwar .
Article printed from News | Serbian Unity Congress: http://news.serbianunity.net
URL to article: http://news.serbianunity.net/2007/07/27/3306/
Granny I will be on this post all day and night. LOL
http://www.vvof.org/rhupdate.htm
CIA Releases POW DOCUMENT
The POW/MIA FOIA Litigation suit against the CIA produced 29 documents in an attempt by the CIA to deceive the court that all other information had been declassified. The CIA located a cabinet of documents concerning the POW/MIA issues that had not previously been identified in either communication to Roger Hall, plaintiff in the suit against the CIA or to the court. These released documents are only the first of the CIA load of documents, this is the first layer that was protecting the withheld documents we seek. The CIA has a wealth of information on POWs and this is the first in their front-end -loading attempts to release the least significant information to try to discourage the POW/MIA pursuits in the interests of the POW/MIA families, veterans, researchers and the American public
Documents relating to Vietnam POWs to Russia
A 5 November 1992 document relating to a declassified/redacted version of a 1982 report of another Soviet plan to transfer U.S. POWs to Perm, Russia during the Vietnam conflict; it cited KGB Lt. Gen. Grigoryev and was shown to the POW/MIA Select Committee in February 1992 on the eve of the committee’s trip to Moscow.
Most of the other 28 documents do not reveal anything new or exceptional, this is because that was the purpose of them being hidden in the first place. To have something to let loose, and to disappoint anyone getting to it. Most of this info was released by the POW/MIA Senate Select Committee. We have identified numerous records and groups of records that the CIA denies knowledge of. For example they state I allege that Air America was a CIA {contract} organization, or rely on here say information that the CIA ran the war in Laos. When I in fact use Select committee depositions as the source for some of the evidence, and have witnesses to testify that will confirm this. Still this is some of the trickery they try to deceive the court with.
The above document is important because each time information is found reporting on plans, programs, and witnesses [Gen. Jan Sejna] revealing POWs taken to Russia it is said to be the only report or information on such activity. Following is the Russian reply to inquiries on another plan of the 60’s to “deliver knowledgeable Americans to the USSR for intelligence purposes” received from AIIPOWMIAI.
Interview with former KGB Chief Vladimir Semichastnyy, November 10, 1998 Representatives of the Joint Commission interviewed the former Chief of the Soviet KGB, Vladimir Semichastnyy, regarding his involvement in an alleged KGB plan from the late 1960s to “deliver knowledgeable Americans to the USSR for intelligence purposes.”
Semichastnyy denied any knowledge of the KGB plan that was revealed by General Volkogonov in his recently published memoir. Semichastnyy said that the KGB would not have had a specific plan to transfer American citizens to the USSR. He acknowledged, however, that an objective to access American military personnel in Southeast Asia might have been included as a part of a six-month or one-year plan of overall KGB foreign intelligence objectives. Semichastnyy admitted that he might have signed such a document containing a brief reference to American servicemen, but he could not specifically recall having done so.
Deputy Minister Kalinin: Esteemed Mr. Ambassador! Esteemed Gentlemen! During the 15th Plenum, our group has primarily focused on the information that was published in Volkogonov’s book regarding the alleged KGB plan to transfer American citizens from Vietnam to the Soviet Union. During this time, in my view, we have determined that a separate plan to transfer American citizens from Vietnam to the USSR did not exist. However, a presumption exists that some fragmented part of an overall KGB plan could have existed; at the same time, not a single American was ever transferred from Vietnam to the USSR. This question is fairly complicated because all of it is based on assumptions and rumors. Even in Volkogonov’s publication it is not clear who ordered the alleged transfer of Americans to the USSR. In order to shed light on this issue, we met with the former Chairman of the KGB, V. E. Semichastnyy, who stated during our discussions that a separate plan did not exist, and that he was not aware of the plan that was referenced in Volkogonov’s book. I think that we have gained a lot of perspective on the future direction of the Group and how we should proceed, especially with regard to the activities of Foreign Intelligence, the GRU, the General Staff, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the industrial ministries (relating to the workings of spetsgruppas), and so on. Of course, Senator Smith’s suggestion to prepare a letter to the heads of our government requesting assistance with respect to the documents we are discussing needs to be carried out. We will continue working with Semichastnyy. We now have a specific, definite direction, and if we keep working in this direction, we will obtain a positive result. The most important thing is that there is nothing sensational here, based on the information that we presently have. We can say once again that Americans were not transferred from Vietnam to the Soviet Union. I suggest that there needs to be more active work done with China because, based on the relationship between China and Vietnam at that time, one can conclude that China might have information on American prisoners.
Following is list of documents received from the CIA.
1. Interrogation of U.S. POWs by Soviet Officers
2. KGB Allegations Denied - Kalugin
3. Update On PW-MIA Activities
4. DIA (PW-MIA) Review Panel on 7 January 1993
5. Information On Alleged MIA Remains in China
6. 5 November [1992]meeting with Senator Smith (KGB Lt. Gen. Grigoryev)
7. Russian Ministry for Federal Security (MFB, formerly KGB)
Response Concerning U.S. POW/MIAs in the Former Soviet Union
8. Sen. Smith - letter - U.S. POWs to Russia
9. Sen. Kerry - letter - Soviet Involvement with American POWs
10. SSCI Staff Briefing on Reporting of U.S. POWs in the USSR after WWII
(They located 4 doc but missed the 1205 doc)
11. Reported Sighting of a Captured American Pilot in Southern Laos in May 1971
12. Reported May 1971 Sighting of a Captured Northwest Muong Phine
13. Sighting of three Unidentified U.S. POWs in an NVA/PL Prison in the
Lao/South Vietnam Border Area in Early 1968.
14. FBIS Reports Searching for Evidence of American Pws Held in Laos
15. Reported Sightings in South Laos of Four Captured American Pilots
in Mid-1970 and Two Captured American Pilots in Early 1969
16. a. Mid-1970 Sighting of Four Captured American Pilots in a
North Vietnamese Commo-Liaison About 25 kilometers Northwest of Tchepone
b. Early 1969 Sighting of Two Captured American Pilots
Approximately 15 Kilometers of Moung Phine
17. Enemy Prisons in Laos - Laos
18. Enemy Prisons in Laos
19. A Vietnamese Diplomats Denial that Vietnam sent U.S. Prisoners
of War to the Former Soviet Union (Yeltsin, July, 1992)
20. Enemy Prisons in Laos, 8 October 1971
21. Alleged Soviet Incarceration of U.S. Vietnam Prisoners of War,
(DOI: 1970)12 March 1982 (Lt. Gen. Petr Ivanovich
((Grigoriyev)) “specially selected U.S. prisoners received from
North Vietnam for long term or life time custody and “ideological
re-training” in the soviet Union “on the order of several thousand”)
22. HPSCI Staff Briefing on Reporting of U.S. POWs in the USSR Post WWII
23. Union Leader Brings to Light Pact Violation (Lindstrom)
24. Laos POW List Shows 9 From U.S.
25. U.S. Asks Former Soviet Republics about American MIAs
26. Sighting of Downing of U.S. F-4 Jet in Savannakhet Province, Laos
27. Alleged Sighting of a Live Caucasian American Prisoner at Khak Keut Town,
Khoueng Khammouak, Laos in June 1975
28. Sighting of Eight U.S. POWs in Sam Nuea Province, Laos, and the Subsequent
Death of One of the POWs
POW page of article clips.
http://pages.prodigy.net/lynnpowmia/naf1.htm
http://www.nationalalliance.org/home1.htm
[I think that I found the old files for Namebase, interesting and different from your link yesterday.....granny]
Organized Crime:
http://www.namebase.org/news08.html
Subjects, might need a good tinfoil hat:
http://www.namebase.org/reviews.html
CIA and FBI declassified documents:
http://www.namebase.org/foia.html
Remote Viewing:
http://www.militaryremoteviewers.com/cia_remote_viewing_sri.htm
CIA declassified reading room:
http://www.snake.ne.jp/~yama/nph-docomo.cgi/010000A/http/www.foia.cia.gov/pow_mia.asp
Declassified Viet Nam era CIA documents: [soviets]
http://www.clemson.edu/caah/history/facultypages/EdMoise/ciadocs.html
Viet Nam and soviet declassified:
http://www.clemson.edu/caah/history/facultypages/EdMoise/gov’t.html#cia
http://www.clemson.edu/caah/history/facultypages/EdMoise/special.html#cia
WoW:
http://www.clemson.edu/caah/history/FacultyPages/EdMoise/bibliography.html#spe
Weather Warfare:
http://www.clemson.edu/caah/history/facultypages/EdMoise/weather.html
More info on remote viewing/Star Wars:
Assassination, JFK, Oswald, Mexico, declassified:
http://www.aarclibrary.org/publib/jfk/hsca/lopezrpt_2003/contents.htm
http://www.aarclibrary.org/publib/jfk/contents.htm
http://www.aarclibrary.org/publib/contents.htm
Interesting read on JFK murder:
http://www.assassinationweb.com/shack3g.htm
JFK [amazing collection of reports]
http://www.assassinationweb.com/issue2.htm
The assassination of JFK, RFK and MLK ....links to reports:
http://www.assassinationweb.com/index.html
JFK murder connected:
http://www.jfk-online.com/enchant.html
Oswald, CIA, Mexico, links to many reports:
http://www.history-matters.com/archive/jfk/hsca/lopezrpt_2003/contents.htm
Legal news:
http://jurist.law.pitt.edu/jurist_search.php?q=cia%20documents
China news:
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/world/2007-06/27/content_903554.htm
JFK, releases:
http://www.acorn.net/jfkplace/09/fp.back_issues/11th_Issue/arrb_update.html
JFK collection, for sale:
http://www.history-matters.com/store/store_hm_arrb9596.htm
Declassified, Chile:
http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/news/20001113/
Declassified Russia and China:
Granny I will be on this post all day and night. LOL<<<
Sooo, where do you think that I have been?
too tired to laugh.
too tired to read all the good stuff that I dug up.
the eyes have quit, long ago, but the mind is going 90 miles an hour....
laughing at me and you.
Tajikistan high court sentences ex-Guantanamo detainees
Bernard Hibbitts at 3:18 PM ET
Photo source or description
[JURIST] The Supreme Court of Tajikistan Friday sentenced two former Guantanamo Bay detainees to 17 years in prison each for serving as mercenaries in Afghanistan. Mukit Vokhidov and Rukhiddin Sharopov crossed to Afghanistan in 2001 as members of the al Qaeda-linked Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan [CNS backgrounder]; they were captured by US forces operating in the north of the country in November that year and later sent to the US military prison at Guantanamo Bay.
Vokhidov and Sharopov were released by US authorities and returned to Tajikistan in March 2005. The Tajik court also convicted them of illegal border crossing. The Tajik goverment says that some 20 Tajiks are being held at Guantanamo. AP has more. Interfax has additional coverage.
http://jurist.law.pitt.edu/paperchase/
http://jurist.law.pitt.edu/paperchase/2007/08/iran-summons-argentina-officials-for.php
Friday, August 17, 2007
Iran summons Argentina officials for fabricating case against Iran in 1994 bombing
Brett Murphy at 2:53 PM ET
Photo source or description
[JURIST] An Iranian court has issued a summons for five Argentinean officials, accusing them of fabricating a case against Iran in the 1994 bombing of a Buenos Aires Jewish Community Center [Wikipedia backgrounder], Iranian media reported Thursday. The Argentineans were involved in an investigation that implicated Iran as partly responsible for the bombing, which killed 85 and wounded hundreds more. Iran has repeatedly denied involvement and has issued the summons through diplomatic channels.
In March, Interpol [official website] agreed to issue arrest notices [JURIST report] for six men thought to be connected with the bombing. Argentina [JURIST news archive] had initially sought to have a number of high ranking Iranian officials arrested, including former Iran President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani [official website, in Farsi; JURIST report], but Interpol’s Executive Committee [official website] approved notices for only five Iranians, including one for former Intelligence Chief Ali Fallahian, and an additional notice for a Lebanese militant. VOA News has more.
Obviously it would be a far better solution.
It appears that both Putin's Russia and Red China have drained every dime from the west in order to build their war machines for the 'final war' against the West.
The White House and Number 10 must begin to seriously pay attention to Russians remaining in Russia speaking the truth about Putin repressive, totalitarian, Neo-Soviet régime - and act accordingly while time remains to act.
Kasparov: The Putin system works like the Mafia – and previously the Stalin regime. The leader says: "Politkowskaja is a pain in the neck, I don't want to hear anything more about her." And the apparatus solves the problem. I do not know whether Putin gave an explicit order to commit murder. But it is clear that he tolerates and accepts these acts. (article below)
SECRECY NEWS
from the FAS Project on Government Secrecy
Volume 2007, Issue No. 81
August 8, 2007
** PALAU RATIFIES THE COMPREHENSIVE TEST BAN TREATY
** NEW MILITARY REGS ON INFORMATION ASSURANCE, COMSEC
** CRS REPORTS ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS
PALAU RATIFIES THE COMPREHENSIVE TEST BAN TREATY
On August 1, the Pacific island nation of Palau became the 139th
country to ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty that would ban all
nuclear explosions.
Among states that possess nuclear weapons, only France, Russia and the
United Kingdom have ratified the Treaty. To enter into force, the CTBT
Organization explained in an August 7 news release, the Treaty must be
ratified by ten other countries including the United States, China,
Iran, Israel, India, Pakistan and North Korea, none of which has shown
any eagerness to proceed.
http://www.fas.org/irp/news/2007/08/palau-ctbt.html
The John F. Kennedy Presidential Library last week released
declassified recordings of President Kennedy discussing the debate over
a nuclear test ban in 1963. See the Library news release here:
http://www.fas.org/sgp/news/2007/08/jfk080306.html
Detailed background on the history and status of the nuclear test ban
debate is available from the Congressional Research Service in “Nuclear
Weapons: Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty,” updated July 12, 2007:
http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/nuke/RL33548.pdf
NEW MILITARY REGS ON INFORMATION ASSURANCE, COMSEC
A newly updated U.S. Army regulation on information assurance defines
standards and procedures for protecting classified and unclassified
information in automated information systems. See “Information
Assurance,” AR 25-2, August 3, 2007:
http://www.fas.org/irp/doddir/army/ar25-2.pdf
Meanwhile, a new U.S. Navy Instruction establishes policy on monitoring
of Navy communications for internal security purposes. See
“Communications Security (COMSEC) Monitoring of Navy Telecommunications
and Automated Information Systems (AIS),” OPNAV Instruction 2201.3A,
August 2, 2007:
http://www.fas.org/irp/doddir/navy/opnavinst/2201_3a.pdf
CRS REPORTS ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS
Recent reports of the Congressional Research Service on various foreign
affairs topics include the following, obtained by Secrecy News. CRS
does not makes its reports directly available to the public.
“Iraq: Oil and Gas Legislation, Revenue Sharing, and U.S. Policy,”
updated July 25, 2007:
http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/mideast/RL34064.pdf
“Gangs in Central America,” updated August 2, 2007:
http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/row/RL34112.pdf
“Afro-Latinos in Latin America and Considerations for U.S. Policy,”
updated July 13, 2007:
http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/row/RL32713.pdf
“Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America: An Overview and
Selected Issues,” August 2, 2007:
http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/row/RS22701.pdf
“Israeli-Arab Negotiations: Background, Conflicts, and U.S. Policy,”
updated July 9, 2007:
http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/mideast/RL33530.pdf
“Turkey’s 2007 Elections: Crisis of Identity and Power,” updated July
11, 2007:
http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/mideast/RL34039.pdf
“The Kaesong North-South Korean Industrial Complex,” July 19, 2007:
http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/row/RL34093.pdf
“The Proposed South Korea-U.S. Free Trade Agreement (KORUS FTA),”
updated July 18, 2007:
http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/row/RL33435.pdf
“Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia: Political Developments and
Implications for U.S. Interests,” updated July 31, 2007:
http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/row/RL33453.pdf
“Cyprus: Status of U.N. Negotiations and Related Issues,” updated July
20, 2007:
http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/row/RL33497.pdf
“Pakistan-U.S. Relations,” updated July 23, 2007:
http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/row/RL33498.pdf
“Cambodia: Background and U.S. Relations,” updated July 18, 2007:
http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/row/RL32986.pdf
“China-U.S. Trade Issues,” updated July 20, 2007:
http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/row/RL33536.pdf
“China Naval Modernization: Implications for U.S. Navy Capabilities —
Background and Issues for Congress,” updated July 20, 2007:
http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/row/RL33153.pdf
“China/Taiwan: Evolution of the ‘One China’ Policy — Key Statements
from Washington, Beijing, and Taipei,” updated July 9, 2007:
http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/row/RL30341.pdf
“U.S. Clothing and Textile Trade with China and the World: Trends Since
the End of Quotas,” July 10, 2007:
http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/row/RL34106.pdf
“U.S.-Peru Economic Relations and the U.S.-Peru Trade Promotion
Agreement,” July 27, 2007:
http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/row/RL34108.pdf
“The United Kingdom: Issues for the United States,” updated July 16,
2007:
http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/row/RL33105.pdf
_______________________________________________
Secrecy News is written by Steven Aftergood and published by the
Federation of American Scientists.
The Secrecy News Blog is at:
http://www.fas.org/blog/secrecy/
http://russophobe.blogspot.com/2007/08/arap-saga-continues.html
Saturday, August 18, 2007
The Arap Saga Continues
Writing in the American Spectator, journalist and blogger Christopher Orlet blasts the Kremlin over the neo-Soviet weaponization of psychiatry:
At first blush it would seem a typical case of Russian President Vladimir Putin dipping into the Old Bolshevik’s Playbook — just another example of Life imitating Marx. But in today’s Russia, things are seldom what they seem.
Take the case of Larisa Arap. Ms. Arap, 49, is a journalist and, for the past six weeks, an inmate of a psychiatric clinic in the northwestern cities of Murmansk (the world’s largest city north of the Arctic Circle) and Apatiti. On July 5, 2007, Ms. Arap appeared for her annual physical, a requirement for renewing one’s driver’s license. It was during the exam that Dr. Marina Rekish discovered that her patient was the author of a newspaper story titled “Madhouse” that alleged child abuse and other barbarisms at the Murmansk Regional Psychiatric Hospital. Dr. Rekish immediately telephoned police who arrived minutes later —dressed in combat fatigues — and dragged the reporter to the hospital’s psychiatric unit where she has remained under “doctors’ care” ever since.
Both opposition leader and former chess champ Garry Kasparov and the chair of Russia’s Independent Psychiatric Association, Dr. Vladimir Prokudin, charge that Ms. Arap’s confinement is retribution for her investigative piece. The hospital’s chief medical officer Yevgeny Yenin dismissed any link between Arap’s piece and her confinement. He then violated his patient’s privacy rights by revealing that Ms. Arap had been committed once before. (Arap’s husband acknowledged that his wife had been in a psych unit for two weeks in 2004 for stress. It was during this stay that she witnessed the abuses detailed in her story.)
Soon after her arrest a Murmansk judge — acting on the recommendation of local authorities — declared the reporter to be “a danger to herself and others,” a view challenged by an account Arap’s daughter gave to the Chicago Tribune. “One of the doctors asked whether I thought it was normal to write such things,” Taisiya Arap told the Trib. “[The doctor] said, ‘It’s not possible to write such things. It’s forbidden.’” Doctors also told Taisiya Arap that her mother needed “long term treatment and might never leave the clinic,” the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung reported.
When not investigating allegations of child abuse by medical professionals, Arap is a member of Kasparov’s opposition United Civil Front. Following Arap’s arrest, Kasparov told the Independent
Indeed, Ms. Arap’s detention recalls a time not so long ago when all Soviet dissidents were regarded as being of unsound mind, since “no sane person would declaim against Soviet government and communism,” and paranoia was defined as the obsession with “the struggle for truth and justice.” It was an effective and convenient way of silencing dissidents for institutionalization not only descredited their ideas, it broke them physically and mentally. “Treatment” often involved electric shocks, narcotics, beatings, isolation and torturous and unnecessary medical procedures like spinal taps. Patients were frequently doped into submission for years at a time. Whether this was more humane than summary execution or exile to labor camps in Siberia or Kazakhstan is a matter of debate.
One of those who served time both in a gulag and a mental hospital, Vladimir Bukovsky, told the Tribune that “as far as the current lot in power is concerned using psychiatry for political purposes is a perfectly acceptable way of dealing with opponents...you don’t have to hire a killer.” Such retro behavior is only to be expected, the director of Moscow’s Center for Journalism in Extreme Situations Oleg Panfilov told the Independent. “When there are KGB officers in the government, they restore what there was during the Soviet era: propaganda, censorship, and repression.” (That an organization called the Center for Journalism in Extreme Situations is necessary says all one needs to know about freedom of the press in Russia.)
Sadly Ms. Arap’s case is not unique. The Tribune has documented two similar episodes — one of lawyer Marina Trutko, another of businessman Roman Lukin, both recently committed to psychiatric hospitals for human rights activities.
These days it is no easy thing to completely isolate so-called mental patients, and a few officials have been able to meet with Ms. Arap, including Russia’s Human Rights Commissioner Vladimir Lukin, and three members of the Independent Psychiatric Association. The latter examined Arap and pronounced her to be of sound mind, though suffering from the effects of her confinement, maltreatment and her second hunger strike. The psychiatrists called for her immediate release.
Is this a case of a local medical mafia unable to shake its Soviet-era mindset and therefore taking the law into its own hands, or a thuggish government reverting to Stalinist tactics to silence and discredit the opposition? What do you want to bet it is, “All of the Above”? — that anyone can be forcibly detained “if you attack the interests of the local Gazprom, the local military base, or the local medical mafia. Attacking the interests of local bureaucrats is a terrible risk, because they don’t stop at anything to get their own back.”
It’s worthy of note the Russia Profile, the Kremlin’s slavishly insidious propaganda blog, has stated: “Larisa Arap is not a journalist, and in contradiction to what has been widely reported, did not write the article in question. She is an accountant at the Murmansk office of the United Civil Front, and was quoted at length in an article written by a journalist named Ilona Novikova entitled ‘Madhouse’ and published in a special edition of a local opposition newspaper titled ‘Dissenters March.’” This is really pathetic propaganda. Everyone associated with the opposition groups in Russia has a day job because there isn’t enough money to pay them. That doesn’t mean she’s not a journalist, and it’s been made quite clear that Arap was the de facto author of the piece in question, though she was presented as a source by the nominal writer.
Russia Profile also seeks to smear Arap by stating: “It seems that Ms. Arap does have a history of psychiatric problems.” It doesn’t give one single shred of evidence to back up this claim, and the fact that Ms. Arap had “psychiatric problems” at some point in her life has nothing whatsoever to do with whether there were grounds to incarcerate her. Shame on Russia Profile for this unsourced smear, and shame on all those associated with it!
But it’s also worthy of note that not even Russia Profile can completely deny the horror of this situation, though it does it all it can to minimize it. RP itself admits that Russia’s human rights Czar has examined the situation, found the detention totally bogus, and declared: “This woman is a member of the United Civil Front and as such was able to get international attention,” said Savenko. “But there are many other cases that are even more disturbing that have not made it to the public domain. We are on the verge of a wide-scale misuse of psychiatry for non-medical grounds that is reminiscent of Soviet times.”
The Committee to Protect Journalists has written to “President” Putin to demand Arap’s release:
August 14, 2007
His Excellency Vladimir Putin
President of the Russian Federation
The Kremlin
Moscow, Russia
Via Facsimile: 011 7 495 206 5137/206 6277
Your Excellency,
The Committee to Protect Journalists is deeply disturbed by the illegal psychiatric confinement in the northern city of Apatity of opposition activist Larisa Arap. Arap’s forced hospitalization on July 5 came soon after the publication of a story she coauthored on the treatment of patients at the Murmansk regional psychiatric hospital in Apatity—the same hospital where she is being held today.
On June 8, the Murmansk edition of the opposition newspaper Marsh Nesoglasnykh (Dissenters’ March)—the organ of the opposition coalition United Civic Front (OGF), led by Garry Kasparov—published Arap’s story. Titled “Durdom” (“Madhouse”), it described how harsh medical practices, such as the use of electroshock therapy, were reportedly used in treating children and adolescents at Apatity.
On July 5, Arap went to a local clinic in Severomorsk to receive the results of a medical checkup she had undergone a month earlier as a requirement to renew her driver’s license. What was intended as a routine doctor’s visit turned into a 40-day nightmare. Her doctor, Marina Rekish, who had issued a certificate for Arap a year earlier, asked her whether she was the author of “Durdom.” When Arap confirmed that she was indeed the author, Rekish told her to wait outside. After some time, the doctor returned with several police officers who detained Arap until an ambulance arrived. Arap was taken to a Murmansk hospital where she was injected with drugs that weakened her, caused her tongue to swell, blurred her vision, and affected her balance, according to relatives who visited her at the hospital.
On July 7, when Arap’s husband, Dmitry, and daughter, Taisiya, were allowed to visit her at the hospital, Arap complained that the medical personnel had tied her to her bed and beat her. To protest the treatment, Arap went on a five-day hunger strike on July 9. Yelena Vasilyeva, chairwoman of the Murmansk branch of OGF and Arap’s trustee, told the Russian press that Arap feared doctors were drugging her meals.
It was not until July 18 that a Murmansk district court officially sanctioned Arap’s hospitalization, meaning her 13-day detention had been illegal. The court upheld an appeal by the hospital holding Arap and ignored entreaties from her relatives and colleagues who pointed out that she was not a danger to herself or people around her.
Despite protests from local and international opposition and human rights activists, authorities continued to hold Arap and medicate her without her diagnosis. Doctors have also refused to give her diagnosis to her family, lawyer, and trustee. On July 26, the 49-year-old Arap was taken to the Murmansk regional psychiatric hospital in Apatity—the place she described in “Durdom.”
The city of Apatity is about 100 miles (161 kilometers) south of Murmansk, and the hospital is outside city limits in a forested area. Mental patients housed there are considered a danger to themselves and those around them. On July 31, during a visit to Arap at Apatity, doctors openly asked Vasilyeva whether her coalition, OGF, was afraid of publishing an article like Arap’s “Durdom.” Arap is still being held at the hospital.
Responding to local and international protests, the Russian Ombudsman for Human Rights Vladimir Lukin commissioned an independent psychiatric evaluation of Arap.
Yesterday, Yuri Savenko, president of the Independent Psychiatric Association, concluded that Arap has been illegally hospitalized, the Interfax news agency reported. “Larisa Arap has been put in a clinic by force, rudely, and without any grounds,” Savenko told Interfax. “This style, which is typical of the Soviet times—to protect the state and not the person—is used by inertia,” Savenko was quoted as saying.
Meanwhile, local sources told CPJ that Larisa Arap’s daughter, Taisiya, was fired from her job at a Murmansk bank last week. Her employers told her she had been giving too many interviews about her mother.
Your Excellency, the horrifying method of forcible psychiatric detention as punishment for dissent was a trademark of the Soviet past and has no place in a new, democratic Russia. We call on you to personally intervene in the case of Larisa Arap, who has been living a nightmare because she wrote a story that angered those same hospital authorities “treating” her now. In view of yesterday’s expert conclusion by the Independent Psychiatric Association, we ask that Larisa Arap be immediately released and that a criminal investigation is opened against those responsible for her illegal detention and psychiatric treatment.
Thank you for your attention to this matter. We await your reply.
Sincerely,
Joel Simon
Executive Director
http://www.chessbase.com/newsdetail.asp?newsid=4055
M. Espinola’s link to the latest Kaspavrov article, is interesting, he must be very careful, or they will have him in a mental ward with
Arap.
http://russophobe.blogspot.com/2007/08/chicago-tribune-blasts-neo-soviet.html
Monday, August 20, 2007
Chicago Tribune Blasts Neo-Soviet Weaponization of Psychiatry
A devastating editorial from the Chicago Tribune rips the Kremlin a new one over its attempts to re-weaponize psychiatry:
Your Father’s Soviet Union
In the former Soviet Union, psychiatrists invented definitions of mental illness so warped that they came to include people guilty of nothing more than pursuing truth and justice. Dissidents routinely were tossed into psychiatric hospitals and tormented with psychotropic drugs merely because they had publicly disagreed with the government. If you opposed communism, the reasoning went, you had to be insane.
Those and other outrageous practices were routine for decades. But with the Soviet collapse, there was a sense among psychiatrists and watchdog groups in Russia and elsewhere that Russian authorities had halted such flagrant abuse of medicine and psychiatry.
Unfortunately, that may be false. As Tribune foreign correspondent Alex Rodriguez reported last week, Russian authorities are backsliding into Soviet-style repression, using psychiatry to suppress political opponents. “We’re returning to this Soviet scenario when psychiatric institutions are used as punitive instruments,” said Yuri Savenko, president of the Independent Psychiatric Association of Russia. “I call this not even punitive psychiatry but police psychiatry, when the main aim is to protect the state rather than to treat sick people.”
One chilling account: Earlier this summer, Larisa Arap, an activist with former chess champion Garry Kasparov’s movement opposed to Russian President Vladimir Putin, co-wrote an article alleging abusive practices at local psychiatric clinics. When she visited a Murmansk clinic to pick up a routine medical certificate to renew a driver’s license, a doctor called police and had her delivered to a local asylum. The apparent diagnosis: Opposing Putin. “One of the doctors asked whether I thought it was normal to write such things,” Arap’s daughter Taisiya said. “She said, ‘It’s not possible to write such things. It’s forbidden.’” In other words, she must be crazy to write those things.
So now Arap languishes in a psychiatric facility, drugged and woozy.
That’s a troubling throwback to Soviet days. The Soviets started to come clean and allegedly reform the system almost two decades ago. Officials acknowledged that psychiatry had been systematically used in the 1970s to suppress dissidents by declaring them mentally ill and committing them to asylums. It didn’t take much to warrant such treatment.
The government outlawed tossing sane people into mental institutions in 1988. Control of special psychiatric hospitals was handed from the police to health authorities. In 1991, a panel of Soviet scientists and psychiatrists formally apologized for one infamous case of unjustly diagnosing and hospitalizing a dissident who spoke out against Communist Party corruption and a “personality cult” around then-leader Nikita Khrushchev.
The abuses today don’t appear to be as widespread and systematic. But after so many years, why do they persist? One reason is that rule of law in Russia is still fragile. There are few checks and balances to prevent these kinds of things from happening. If a local psychiatrist or judge manages to commit someone for trumped-up reasons, there’s no strong national authority willing to intervene. Courts officials are often corrupt and tend to do the bidding of local and regional authorities.
It’s encouraging that some independent groups, such as Savenko’s, are willing to stand up to authorities and expose abuse. What’s needed now is the kind of unrelenting international scrutiny and pressure that forced reforms in the 1980s. That could come soon. Officials at the American Psychiatric Association say they’re “very concerned” and are examining allegations of abuse, according Dr. Carolyn Robinowitz, president of the American Psychiatric Association. “If this correct, this is absolutely shameful and intolerable,” she says.
If Soviet-style practices return, so must international scorn. Putin has striven over the past few years to “rebrand” Russia as a place that respects a certain amount of freedom of speech. It’s not your father’s Soviet Union, in other words. Except that, more and more, it is.
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