Posted on 04/25/2002 7:12:20 PM PDT by Ivan the Terrible
If we are to believe the Moscow media, during February and the first half of March 2002, relations between the United States and Russia changed – and changed greatly – from bad to worse.
The most recent issues of the leading Moscow newspapers and magazines are oversaturated with anti-American sentiments.
For example, the weekly Moscow News (usually a very liberal, "pro-American and pro-democratic" magazine for intellectuals) published an article in its March 12-18 issue called "Let's put the Bush gang on trial! It is fashionable, among Russian politicians, to be anti-Western this season."
The article quoted such Russian politicians as Vladimir Zhirnovsky, Alexei Mitrofanov (No. 2 in the Russian Liberal-Democratic Party, after Zhirinovsky), Dmitry Rogozin (a member of the Russian Duma and an outspoken nationalist), Lyubov Sliska (deputy speaker of the Russian Duma and close to President Putin) and some other representatives of the Russian "political elite."
All of them are against the trial of Slobodan Milosevic in The Hague, fiercely against the presence of U.S. military advisers in Georgia, and madly against "U.S. pressure on Russia, U.S. violation of Russian interests and interference in Russian internal deals."
In the same issue of "Moscow News" also was the article "In search of dear Bin [Laden]," a satire claiming that America is using the messy situation at the borders of the republics of Chechnya and Georgia as the pretext for military intervention (deployment of military advisers) in Georgia and the entire Trans-Caucasus zone.
One more article, on the same page of this magazine, is called "[Russian] retreat to the North? Russia could give up its positions in Armenia to NATO."
The article insists that presently the U.S. and NATO will use all means available to establish strategic military control over all three republics of the Trans-Caucasus region – Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan – and push Russia out of this strategically important zone, for the following purposes:
- to use the Trans-Caucasian corridor as the way to the oil-rich Caspian zone and Central Asia;
- to use this zone as a bridgehead for attacking Iran, Russia's ally and part of the newly proclaimed "axis of evil."
Issue No. 10 of the weekly "Argumenty I Fakty" (very liberal, "pro-democratic," pro-governmental, America-friendly and aimed at the general public), published in mid-March, contains an assembly of articles called "Putin, Georgians and Americans," which claim the following:
- Moscow is very afraid of U.S. and NATO troops' penetration into Georgia and other former Soviet republics.
- Putin, at the summit of the leaders of the former Soviet republics in Alma-Aty city (Kazakhstan) at the beginning of March, tried but failed to enhance the leading role of Russia in "post-Soviet space."
- All Russian political leaders, including Communist leader Gennady Zyaganov, support Putin in the "anti-U.S. endeavor." However, Georgian President Shevarnadze, evidently, made a final choice between Moscow and Washington; he chose Washington and NATO. The leaders of the other Trans-Caucasian and Central Asian republics are going to follow Shevarnadze's lead.
Very remarkably, in March 2002, almost all of the Moscow newspapers and magazines, including the pro-Western "Argumenty I Fakty" and "Moscow News," the moderate "Versiya," "Sovershenno Sekretno" and "Nezavisimaya Gazeta," the leftist "Pravda" and "Sovetskaya Rossiya," and the nationalist "Zavtra" are singing the same song.
The major "refrains" of this song are easy. The deployment of U.S. troops (military advisers) in Georgia and, more broadly, in the Trans-Caucasus zone enraged Russian political leaders. They hate the U.S. and its NATO allies for
- "aggression" in Georgia;
- the "stolen victory" of the Salt Lake City Olympics;
- withdrawal from the ABM treaty;
- threats – in the form of the "axis of evil" – to old Russian friends Iran, Iraq and North Korea;
- plans to include the Baltic republics in NATO as early as 2002;
- Western complaints about genocide in Chechnya;
- the trial of Slobodan Milosevic in The Hague.
Yes, it is possible to trust the Moscow media that the Kremlin, the Russian government and the Russian Duma (Parliament) are boiling with anger despite Putin's nice words that "the presence of U.S. troops in Georgia is no tragedy."
The real tragedy for Moscow is the forthcoming loss of huge income, and the Moscow media doesn't try to hide this:
1) As a result of NATO expansion into the Trans-Caucasian region, Central Asia and the Caspian zone, Russia could lose control over huge local hydrocarbon resources, i.e., at least 60 billion barrels of oil and 20 trillion cubic meters of natural gas (proved reserves only).
The same is true for all the other resources of Central Asia and the Trans-Caucasian republics. Indeed, NATO presently has 1,500 servicemen at the Khanabad base in Uzbekistan and 1,500 servicemen at Manas airport in Kyrgyzstan. Soon, perhaps as early as April or May, the U.S. and NATO could have up to 5,000 servicemen and dozens of military aircraft at each of these bases. NATO could deploy troops in Kazakhstan as well.
Shortly, Central Asia – as Georgia – will change its orientation from Moscow to Washington. And Moscow will lose its traditional backyard.
2) The U.S. force deployment around Iraq is rapidly increasing; it looks as if the U.S. will strike Iraq in the very near future. The Russian Foreign Ministry and Foreign Intelligence Service of the FSB/KGB are sure that the U.S. is preparing for a large-scale attack on Iraq aimed at eliminating the regime of Saddam Hussein.
"Russia should protect its economic interests in Iraq," stresses Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov. Officially, Russia receives from Iraq $2.5 billion annually from hundreds of Russian enterprises with many thousands of employees.
This sum doesn't take into account the Russian "gray businesses" in Iraq – i.e., re-selling cheap Iraqi oil at world prices and Iraqi subsidies to leftist and nationalist forces in Russia, etc.
Moscow is also afraid – though to a lesser degree – that possible U.S. and NATO actions against Iran would deprive the Russian defense industry and the Ministry on Nuclear Energy of a profitable consumer of weaponry and nuclear technologies.
Let's look – again, based on information from the Moscow media – what Moscow has in its inventories to oppose the U.S. and NATO:
1. Additional upgrading of the alliance with China. Recent ratification of the Chinese-Russian Friendship and Cooperation Treaty (signed by Putin and Jiang Zemin in Moscow in July 2001) both in Moscow and Beijing speaks for itself. In addition, there is an expanding flow of Russian weaponry to China.
2. Moscow expects that the U.S. strike at Iraq will unite Arab countries into a broad front against "The Great Satan." Moreover, an American invasion of Iraq could result in establishing the broad Muslim anti-American front (this could result in new large-scale terrorist actions).
The recent Arab League summit showed that Arab countries are entirely on the side of Iraq. Resolutions made at the summit were in de facto support of Saddam's regime, warning America against a strike at Baghdad and condemning Israel for "bloodshed in Palestine."
Almost simultaneously, on March 29, Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov made a statement condemning Israel for "intention to isolate Arafat, which is not the way to find a political solution to the current situation."
Ivanov also applauded Arafat's offer to call an unconditional cease-fire and praised the Arab League summit's support for Saudi Arabia's peace plan.
It is easy to see that President Putin, Ivanov and company are giggling gleefully: America has a handful of problems in the Middle East and cannot immediately strike "beloved Saddam" and, moreover (what a pleasure!), oil prices are again on the rise.
On March 16-17, the Minneapolis Jewish organization "Roots" held a reception for a group of Israelis invited to provide information about recent events. Among the guests was a former paratrooper in the Israeli army with experience fighting the terrorists.
Hundreds of "new Americans" (Jews from Russia and other former Soviet republics) came to listen.
Let's put aside the "emotional" part (though it is not easy for the author, a Jew from Russia, to put aside all these soul-freezing stories from eyewitnesses) and go to the essential point.
Conversations with the Israeli guests, along with other information on this subject, resulted, after serious analysis, in the following conclusions:
1. Palestinian terrorists' strikes greatly intensified in February-March, after President Bush announced, in his speech on Jan. 29, the struggle against the "axis of evil." It is more than probable that Saddam is "feeding" the new terror campaign.
2. It is possible that Russia also plays some dark role here. Don't forget the long-term ties of Moscow to Arafat and his gang. At the same time, the Kremlin hypocritically proclaims itself "defender of Soviet and Russian Jews in Israel"!
3. We are now observing something very close to confrontation, with America and Israel on one side and Arab countries (including, naturally, Iraq), Iran and Russia on the other side.
It should be emphasized that terrorists are targeting not only Israel but also America. At the moment, with somewhat diminished opportunities to strike America directly, they are concentrating their efforts on Israel. And the defeat of Israel (one hopes this will not happen within our lifetimes) would be a terrible defeat of America.
The Berezovsky Conference
On March 5, former Russian tycoon and media magnate Boris Berezovsky held a conference in London related to the September 1999 explosions in Moscow. According to Russian media sources, U.S. experts, at the end of February and the beginning of March, checked the most important documents gathered by Berezovsky and his assistants.
During the conference, Berezovsky showed part of a film entitled "Assassination of Russia," compiled by two French filmmakers.
This film linked the Sept. 4, 9 and 13, 1999, bomb attacks in Moscow, the Sept. 16 attack in Volgodonsk (in the Volgograd region of Southern Russia), and the attempted bombing on Sept. 22 in Ryazan (a regional center, 200 km southeast of Moscow) to a FSB/KGB-Kremlin plot.
In addition, Berezovsky and his team showed multiple documents and date-stamped photos related to the case.
Berezovsky claimed that "Moscow" (i.e., the FSB) was behind this series of bomb attacks and that President Putin (prime minister of Russia in September 1999) knew in advance about the bombing campaign. The explosions were used by the "Russian government" (Putin, FSB director Patrushev and military leaders) to justify a new war in Chechnya, which aided Putin's meteoric rise to power.
During the conference, Berezovsky provided witnesses who were former FSB intelligence agents, investigative journalists and explosives experts. In particular, a former FSB employee and the former acting director of Russian Cobersion Explosives Center, Nikita Chekulin, told the news conference that he had documentary evidence showing large amounts of explosives were withdrawn from military bases in 1999 (during the weeks preceding the bombings).
Russian TV stations and newspapers barely covered the conference. That is not surprising, since the FSB and Kremlin are not especially interested in such coverage. Some Moscow papers even called the conference "disappointing."
In reality, Putin and Co. are scared and enraged: Berezovsky dared to touch a major secret of Putin's regime.
On March 10, the members of the Berezovsky-sponsored, newly established Liberal Russia Party tried to sneak boxes of copies of the "Assassination of Russia" film into Moscow. Some of the copies were confiscated by Sheremetyev airport customs, some managed to get through.
Because public opinion in the present half-starving, drunk and drug-addicted Russia is almost nonexistent, however, the film poses no danger to Putin.
Nonetheless, and though Berezovsky is no angel himself, Western politicians still having illusions about "dear Vladimir" should take the Berezovsky documents – as well as many other documents, witnesses and facts related to the September 1999 bombings – into serious consideration.
Putin the Terrorist
President Bush, with whom are you dealing? Do you think that "dear Vladimir" is any better than Saddam, let alone Milosevic?
Who organized the bombing attacks in Moscow and Volgodonsk? Only a fool or a scoundrel – particularly a scoundrel closely related to FSB – could blame "Chechen terrorists" now.
So-called Chechen terrorists never accomplished a strike further than 120 miles from the Chechen border, and all their strikes were small-scale, rude and primitive – no comparison with what happened in Moscow.
Who should be called the "butcher of Chechnya and Dagestan"? We know the name.
Under whose "wise leadership" did the population of Russia decrease from 146 million in mid-1999 to 144 million by the end of 2001? Everybody knows the answer.
During the same period, the number of HIV-infected persons in Russia increased from about 160,000 to close to 2 million. That's in addition to many millions suffering from tuberculosis and the most dangerous forms of hepatitis.
Huge incomes from oil and natural gas export have been spent almost entirely on Russian army and FSB/KGB (including its "foreign structures") revival. Nothing was left for the unfortunate Russian people.
If Putin's regime is not effectively engaged in terror against its own people, then what is terror?
After all, who will dare claim that the FSB and Kremlin have nothing to do with the Sept. 11 strikes? The author did his best to investigate this story and provide the results to NewsMax readers (with a copy to the FBI). At this moment, nobody has tried to deny these claims.
What's worse, nobody has tried to investigate them.
Terror of all kinds is the favorite tool of the present Russian rulers: easy, cheap and with formidable results. How long will it take for the Bush administration and the U.S. people to accept these simple facts? One hopes it will be before any new terrorist strikes.
There is a popular Russian proverb, "Ne poiman – ne vor" (You're not a thief until you're caught). The Kremlin and the FSB (i.e., the Putin regime) behave in exact accordance with this proverb – i.e., in an extremely impudent manner.
In March, the FSB started its case against Boris Berezovsky: "He is a criminal; the U.K. government should send him back to Russia!" The U.K. government received a similar demand for Col. Litvinenko, the recent FSB defector.
Simultaneously, FSB Chief Nikolai Patrushev himself started criminal proceedings against Oleg Kalugin, a retired KGB general living in the U.S.
"Inasmuch as he violated state secrecy, he caused colossal damage to our country," Patrushev said. But in reality,
(a) Putin labeled Kalugin a traitor after he, at the beginning of 2000, branded Putin's Russia criminalized and corrupted.
(b) Patrushev claims that Kalugin is responsible for "betraying" George Trofimoff, a former U.S. Army colonel who was sentenced to life in prison in September 2001 for selling military secrets to the USSR (and possibly to Russia also).
In practice, the FSB dictates its will to U.S. and U.K. authorities.
Finally, About That Russian Flag in Minneapolis
Dozens of families from the USSR and Russia are living in the "Red Brick House" in downtown Minneapolis, at the corner of Nicollett Mall and 14th Street. About two weeks ago, the author discovered with horror two Russian "tricolors" (blue strip, white strip underneath, and red strip at the bottom) near the main entrance to this large, beautiful building. They accompanied the U.S. flag, the flag of Minnesota and the flag of American Volunteers. What an unnatural ensemble!
The author has spoken with two of his friends living in this house. "Nothing special, be cool" is what they are saying. "No grounds for KGB-related suspicions here."
For one who knows what is done in the name of the Russian flag, it is very hard to be cool.
The author believes, based on his own bitter experience, that the threat from Moscow is very real. Unfortunately, the FBI and the police are reluctant to take his warnings seriously.
Still, not everything is lost yet. Organizations such as Americans for Victory Over Terrorism are being formed. The author counts on their support.
Bump.
Bump.
bumpkov.
I guess I missed that one. Thanks for the bump.
Bump!
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