Posted on 08/23/2022 4:36:58 AM PDT by FarCenter
Western media is spinning the August 20 car bombing of Darya Dugina, the daughter of “Eurasionist” ideologue Aleksandr Dugin, as an attack on Vladimir Putin’s “spiritual guide” (CNN) and “brain” (Foreign Affairs) – implicitly a violent blow against the Putin regime.
That fits the longstanding and long-discredited view promoted by Western chancelleries that the Russian president won’t survive the Ukraine war due to growing domestic opposition.
This self-serving reading of the murder—repeatedly endlessly in the English-language media– doesn’t square with the known facts or best-practice inference. Although information remains fragmentary, what we do know makes clear that the origin and intent of the Dugina assassination must be sought elsewhere.
What we know, or can infer with a high degree of certainty, is the following:
1. Aleksandr Dugin is not a Putin ally, but a strident critic of Putin’s stance toward the West.
2. Dugin himself was the target of the assassination, not his daughter; the young woman had the misfortune to drive her father’s car after a speaking event in Moscow while her father rode in a different vehicle.
3. The bombing was amateurish, the work of either terror cells or ordinary criminals, according to sources with knowledge of the thinking of Russian security services. The Russian state knows how to eliminate undesirables, and they do so in more efficient ways—and do not miss. “If Putin wanted to kill Dugin, it would have been done differently, and for sure.”
4. It is unlikely in the extreme that the Ukraine government carried out the bombing, as spokesman for the Russian Foreign Ministry speculated.
Eliminate the impossible, as Sherlock Holmes said, and what remains, however improbable, must be true. Russian opponents of Putin—such as they are—had no reason to kill a messianic ideologue who had become an annoyance to the Russian leader.
(Excerpt) Read more at asiatimes.com ...
The obvious inference is that if criminals perpetrated the botched attempt on Aleksandr Dugin, they did so at the behest of others, presumably oligarchs resident abroad but with continuing connections to criminal elements inside Russia.
Where oligarchs reside, where their property is located and where they might be subject to official pressure are the questions to ask in order to take the chain of inference closer to the origin of the order to kill Aleksandr Dugin.
There are several important facts concerning this situation that are not spinnable.
1) These activities are taking place 4,000 miles from US shores.
2) US involvement in this matter will not be modeled after recent success stories of similar foreign interventions because there are none.
Its not hard to conclude that the posts are:
1. To cloud this site with crap to the point that items that bear directly on the US are drowned out
2. Stir up trouble and strife on this site (its been done in the past)
3. Psyop by Media Matters/Deep State/WEF actors
I've long been curious to know the IP locations of the aggravating posts--are they coming from foreign sources, Mclean VA, or behind a VPN.
Thanks for posting this. I have a paid subscription to AT, buthsd not seen this piece yet.
My first thought on seeing the news about the car bomb was a mafia hit instigated by some oligarch who had some grudge or other against Dugin. Car bombs are their regular MO, along with assassins stationed at intersections. These were common back in the 90s when I was there. My driver loved pointing out me “this is the intersection where they took out so and so” and “this is where so and so’s car blew up”.
The one time I took a little time off to see the sights in Red Square on a weekend afternoon, there was a minor shoot ‘em up right there in Red Square in broad daylight. I later learned it had been a mafia hit of some member of a rival mafia gang, nobody important.
I haven’t been back to Russia since Putin took over, but heard he sorted out the oligarchs in such a way as to more or less keep peace between them (kinda like Gadaffi did with the tribal leaders in Libya), but this did not entirely eliminate such doings, just made them rare.
There are only 3 facts to this: the daughter to Dugin is dead from the car-bomb, it wasn’t her car (dad’s), and there is odd Ukrainian lady (with a daughter) who moved into the daughters neighborhood who seems to have packed up in a hurry and left for Estonia (10 hour drive from Moscow).
If you ask me, this whole thing has a tainted scent of Oswald, agent-provocateur, and some very small group of Oligarch folks who have a calculated plan to stir up trouble with particular members of Putin’s inner circle.
Based on the description of the car-bomb (being remote control, not a timer)...I would imagine within the Moscow district, there’s probably several thousand folks with the talent for this.
Why some secret Ukrainian spy-gal would take her 12-year-old daughter into the middle of mission like this...makes no sense. That’s why I think she was a unwitting player in this and she grasped the situation enough to leave for Estonia. My bet is that her car is found near some ferry parking lot, and she/daughter moved onto some safer location.
The ignominious behavior of the US State Dept. has brought about an existential threat to US hegemony, petro-dollar and reserve currency. It is hard to say what motivates the handful of mendacious actors making the claims that Ukraine is winning, or even should win, because there are plenty of sources that demonstrably show this is simply not the case.
It has not gone unnoticed that this “special military operation” is being conducted without “shock and awe” carpet bombing. We are playing with fire.
“We hear today that they want us to be defeated on the battlefield. Well, what can I say? Let them try. We haven’t even really started anything yet.”
I almost never post on the Ukraine threads because they are mindless twitter-style flame wars. Just the two opposing camps flinging insults at each other like British “football hooligans”. How boring, unless you get off on flame wars. I imagine lots of other Freepers feel as I do and just don’t bother with those asinine threads. Those of us who actually know a thing or two about Ukraine and Russia tend to stay away and discuss via PM or only post on threads like this one which show some promise of reason and sanity prevailing.
There was a time when the constant stream of conspiracy theory nonsense from dodgy clickbait sites would have invited the zot hammer, too. From Ashli Babbitt isn’t really dead, she was crisis actor as were the EMTs and her family, the blood was fake, the window she tried to climb through was really a “movie set window” etc. — to the vaccines contain teeny tiny razor blades, tiny mechanical octopuses, wiggly little parasites, magnetic nanobots that enable mind control by Bill Gates via 5G, King Cobra snake venom, etc. and give you everything from malaria to monkeypox, etc. There are valid reasons to be concerned about the vaccines, but, sorry, these are not among them. Such bogus claims hurt the anti-mandate cause and that irks me, as I am firmly anti-mandate.
Normal sane Freepers avoid those threads, too, except to step in from time to time to inject a little rationality to keep FR from looking like a squirrel cage. There’s no reasoning with such people. All they do is fling insults, name call and hurl ridiculous accusations at all who don’t swallow their outlandish claims. Then they post the same claim all over again or an even more ridiculous one and it’s on to the latest supposed outrage. They, too, have stirred up strife and division here. And distracted from the real problems we face. Same as the Ukraine threads.
FR ain’t what it used to be, and I miss the old days. originally joined back in 2000, but after moving, a dead computer, change of email address and forgotten password, I had to retread. I mainly hung out on the foreign affairs threads because that happens to be my professional area. We had fierce debates back in those days, but little of the crude nastiness you see here now. We stayed friendly and polite with those we disagreed with. There were intelligent, knowledgeable and witty people from all walks of life here and I learned a lot from them. Most are sadly gone now.
A number of good longtime Freepers got tired of all the nastiness and conspiracy nonsense and left, some rarely post any longer, some no longer donate, while others stick to “safe” threads and hope this, too, shall pass.
Some people enjoy flame wars, some enjoy scaring themselves and others with nutty conspiracy theories. It is what it is.
It’s not that others don’t share your concerns, the ones you listed — I certainly do — it’s that it’s impossible to have a serious conversation about these issues in the middle of a mindless football hooligan type slug fest. Why bother trying?
I don’t think WEF or “deep state” or foreign actors would bother with running a psyop on FR. Again, FR is not what it used to be, not influential as it once was, and shrinking. It’s very sad to see, and I would love to see FR restored to its former glory, but starting to lose hope.
>>>>Re: “The ignominious behavior of the US State Dept. has brought about an existential threat to US hegemony, petro-dollar and reserve currency.”<<<
Exactly. I’ve said since the very beginning that the real winner in this war is China. Xi is smiling.
Hong Kong Based Asia Times Joins China’s Fake News Industry
https://newscomworld.com/2020/07/29/hong-kong-based-asia-times-joins-chinas-fake-news-industry/
Bias Rating: LEAST BIASED
Factual Reporting: HIGH
Country: Hong Kong
Press Freedom Rank: LIMITED FREEDOM
Media Type: Newspaper
Traffic/Popularity: Medium Traffic
MBFC Credibility Rating: HIGH CREDIBILITY
https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/asia-times/
Press Freedom Rank: LIMITED FREEDOM
I entirely agree. The level of hysterical vitriol here is insane nowadays, and the Russia/Ukraine threads for some reason really seem to bring it out.
I have some experiential knowledge of the Russian/Ukrainian divide (hint: it’s being going on since just about forever) and also a modest knowledge of Russian literature and thought. I’ve been to Russia and even had two years of Russian in college because I was attending a Russian Orthodox Church at the time and wanted to be able to read Russian art history in the original. (I’ve forgotten most of the Russian, alas.)
In any case, the modest suggestion that this conflict has been going on for centuries and that people needed to understand it in terms of Russian history, the fact that Russia has always seen itself as a sort of holy, messiah people (not nation, but people), and that it has always wanted a union of Slavs “uncontaminated” by the West, immediately brought on FR’s latest derangement syndrome.
But all this is relevant because this particular man, Dugin, seems to have had a sort of pagan version of the Holy Mother Russia philosophy/theology that has often motivated Russian actions, and it’s important to know about it.
The lack of discussion on FR is really a pity, because we don’t get to discuss and freely evaluate anymore. The threads are sometimes filled with nothing but sentence-fragment insults which tell you absolutely nothing about the topic, the reasoning or anything remotely interesting. It’s just irritating and sometimes makes it tempting to reply the same way…at which point it’s time to take a break from FR!
But enough of my rant!
I actually think the question of who did the bombing is very interesting, and because of its target (who was probably the father) it does have political implications and does relate to the Ukrainian situation. So who done it?
AT has a good reputation among those in the biz. I used to get recruitment ads from the US State Dept. all the time there before they switched to paid subscriptions. Yeah, they advertised on AT looking to recruit officers. Yes, I have been reading AT for over two decades now.
They once had a discussion section where Angelo Codevilla would have conversations with Goldman and other top AT columnists. Those were gold, and I was sad when that section went away.
You can find a variety of opinions there, many times conflicting opinions. Goldman is a patriotic American. He’s also an observant Jew who supports Israel. When it comes to Israel, he can be a biased in Israel’s favor. On other matters, he is pretty solid. He believes China is our #1 adversary, as do I.
I am not saying there is anything wrong with being pro-Israel. I am myself. Just that this is one area where he shows bias.
Sorry, meant to ping you to my #14 as well.
Such car bombings have long been a staple of Russian mafia hits.
Kind of their signature tactic.
—”The lack of discussion on FR is really a pity, because we don’t get to discuss and freely evaluate anymore. The threads are sometimes filled with nothing but sentence-fragment insults which tell you absolutely nothing about the topic, the reasoning or anything remotely interesting. It’s just irritating and sometimes makes it tempting to reply the same way…at which point it’s time to take a break from FR!”
HEAR! HEAR!
Before the Ukraine interlopers, I tended to believe in ‘collective intelligence’ ...
Now I see the other side of the coin, ‘collective stupidity’. A major waste of time.
—”Asia Times is controlled by Chinese Commies.”
Pls review Spengler’s long history at Asia Times and explain how that fits into your belief system.
Also, what do read that fits into your views?
But in a regional media landscape that can be hostile both from a business and political point of view, he admits that the site self-censors Chinese-language pieces published in China in order to keep a foothold there.
“We have issues with censorship. There’s certain things we know on the Chinese mainland we’re not going to be able to publish. If we do, we will be shut down,” he says.
Asia Times editor and publisher Uwe Parpart
https://www.splicemedia.com/stories/uwe-parpart-asia-times
Yes, the Russia-Ukraine threads are soup sandwiches alright and seem o attract those who love flame wars. Other than the usual Chatty Cathies mindlessly repeating the same stock phrases on the vax doomer threads (”“€lot $hot”, “Safe and Effective”,“Nuremberg 2”,“Pure Blood”) there’s quite the flow of vitriol there too, if anyone pops in to correct the math or whatever in the clickbait vax doomer blog they posted, then it’s the same stock insults of “$hot$hill”, “Fauxi-Lover”, “troll”, “ Mudblood”, etc. Sad.
It’s not just the Ukraine threads. I think Twitter influence is partly to blame, but only partly.
Yes, someone like you with deep knowledge of the background and history of both Russia and Ukraine and their complicated relationship would be an asset to these discussions, but the flame warriors aren’t interested in reasoned debate, let alone learning anything.
Yes, the conflict goes way back, and flared up after the fall of the USSR. I witnessed a few knockdown drag-out fights among Ukrainian chopper crews over Crimea back in 1992. I mean furniture-hurling brawls like in the saloons in old black-and-white Westerns. Tempers ran high.
BTW, we used to have a few learned Orthodox scholars here on FR. I learned so much from them. They’re gone now :( There were also amazing discussions between highly knowledgeable and intelligent Orthodox and Catholics, threads that went on for over a thousand posts, all polite and informative. Deep questions and insights. There also used to be excellent threads where Protestants debated theology and church issues. I learned a lot from both. You don’t see those here any longer.
Westerners who disagree with the Biden administration’s regime change goal like to point out that Putin is considered a moderate in Russian politics and a hardliner such as Dugin is a more likely successor to Putin in such a scenario than a more liberal one like they envision. I agree with their “be careful what you wish for” stance, but I personally don’t see Dugin as a likely successor.
>>>>Re: “The lack of discussion on FR is really a pity, because we don’t get to discuss and freely evaluate anymore. The threads are sometimes filled with nothing but sentence-fragment insults which tell you absolutely nothing about the topic, the reasoning or anything remotely interesting. It’s just irritating and sometimes makes it tempting to reply the same way…at which point it’s time to take a break from FR!
But enough of my rant!”<<<<<
Very well said!
Hey, sometimes ya just gotta rant. I did my share in my last post on this thread.
Yes, it truly would be interesting to learn “who dunnit”. I have this funny feeling we never will, though.
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