The Bear Goes Walkabout

National Review / Steyn Online ^ | 12/18/06 | Mark Steyn

[Dajjal]

THE BEAR GOES WALKABOUT

by Mark Steyn

You gotta love these alternative theories for the murder of Alexander Litvinenko, the late “Russian dissident” (and there’s a phrase one hadn’t expected to make a comeback quite so soon). Relax, say the Kremlinologists (and there’s another), it wasn’t Putin who had the guy whacked. It was rogue elements within the state apparatus who gained access to supposedly secure facilities and then contaminated five international jets and dozens of joints all over London in order to pull off the world’s first radiological assassination.

Oh, well, that’s okay then. Nothing to worry about.

The late Mr Litvinenko, on the other hand, added to the story some last-minute wrinkles of his own. On his deathbed, the former KGB agent converted to Islam and asked that one day his corpse be reburied in a peaceful and independent Chechnya.

Now what’s that about? Well, like many in Russian political and media circles – including his fellow murder victim Anna Politkovskaya – Litvinenko had become intrigued by the 1999 Moscow apartment-house attacks that killed 300 people and provided the pretext for the Second Chechen War: Were they, in fact, a set-up intended to advance the career of Vladimir Putin? In other words, his entire presidency is founded on a lie. One can understand why a belief in such a conspiracy might destroy one’s faith in one’s country, and even that it might lead one to embrace Chechen separatist leaders, as Litvinenko did. But it doesn’t entirely explain the Muslim conversion business.

I say somewhere or other in my new book that, just as the export of Russia’s ideology was the biggest destabilizing factor in the last century, so the implosion of that ideology could be one of the biggest in this century. That’s to say, what’s left of the Soviet Union has hit the apocalyptic jackpot: the Middle East has Islamists, Africa has Aids and North Korea has nukes, but only Russia has the lot – a disease-riddled Slav population and a fast growing Muslim population jostling atop a colossal nuclear arsenal. The Litvinenko murder is only the first of many stories in which Islam, nuclear materials and Russian decline will intersect in novel ways.

There are ten million people in Moscow. Do you know how many of them are Muslim? Two and a half million. Or about a quarter of the population. The ethnic Russians are older; the Muslims are younger. The ethnic Russians are already in net population decline; the Muslim population in the country has increased by 40% in the last 15 years. Seven out of ten Russian pregnancies (according to some surveys) are aborted; in some Muslim communities, the fertility rate is ten babies per woman. Russian men have record rates of heart disease, liver disease, drug addiction and Aids; Muslims are the only guys in the country who aren’t face down in the vodka.

Faced with these trends, most experts extrapolate: thus, it’s generally accepted that by mid-century the Russian Federation will be majority Muslim. But you don’t really need to extrapolate when the future’s already checking in at reception. The Toronto Star (which is Canada’s biggest-selling newspaper and impeccably liberal) recently noted that by 2015 Muslims will make up a majority of Russia’s army.

Hmm. That’ll add an interesting dimension to the Chechen campaign. Say what you like about Russia but it doesn’t want for plot twists. It is, in that sense, a textbook example of Donald Rumsfeld’s “known unknowns”: a thing we know we don’t know. What will happen in Russia? A remorseless evolution into a majority Muslim state? Bosnian-style civil war? The secession of a dozen or so of Russia’s 89 federal regions? A Muslim military coup? Or a panicky attempt to arrest decline by selling off your few remaining assets, including national resources to the Chinese and nukes to anyone who wants them? None of us knows, but we should know enough to know we don’t know. The Russia of 15 years ago is already ancient history.

Which brings me, alas, to the Iraq Study Group. This silly shallow report, of which James Baker, Lee Hamilton and the rest should be ashamed, betrays no understanding of how fast events are moving. It falls back on the usual multilateral mood music. It wants Iraq, Iran, Syria, Israel and everything else to be mediated by the transnational jet set – the Big Five at the UN, the EU, the Arab League. Just for starters, look at the permanent members of the Security Council: America, Britain, France, Russia, China. What’s the old line on those fellows? The World War Two victory parade preserved in aspic? If only. By 2050, Russia will be the umpteenth Muslim nuclear power, but the first with a permanent seat on the UNSC. Or maybe the second, if France gets there first. And, judging from London literary offerings like George Walden’s Time To Emigrate?, Britain might not be far behind. But, as I said above, forget the extrapolations: already, domestic Muslim constituencies are an important factor in the foreign policy thinking of three out of the big five. Are Baker and Hamilton even aware of that?

As I always say, there is no “stability”. We thought we’d “contained” Soviet Communism. Instead, the social pathologies that took hold during the Russian people’s half-century of “containment” will have profound consequences for us and the rest of the world long after the last Commie is dead and buried.

National Review, December 18th 2006

[dennisw]

Lots of well read posters at JihadWatch. They can type and post ten paragraphs within a few minutes. Hugh can do twenty

[XR7]

Scary.
They'll control the Ruskie nukes.

[Pyro7480]

Fatima is a name of a town in Portugal. As you probably figured, it's name after the daughter of the False Prophet.

[neverdem]

thanks, bfl

[Mind-numbed Robot]

The Communists, no matter the name they use, and the Islamists are together seeking the destruction of the West in their move toward world domination. The USA is their primary obstacle. However, each seeks domination and cannot tolerate the existence of the other once we are gone.

Each uses stealth, the Communist by disguising their intent and quietly infiltrating and destroying our cultural standards; The Islamist by quietly becoming baby factories to build a majority to use votes to get what they want. (The Democrats support illegal immigration for the same reason.)

Either way, they know they cannot defeat us militarily so they infiltrate and subvert us from within.

I don't understand why the Communists support the Islamists. Surely they know this. I suppose they intend to use their superior fire power and brutality to annihilate them as they have always done once they gain power and control.

We are civilizations last best hope and we must destroy them her at home , legally of course, and return to our roots. The rest we can handle.

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks Dajjal.

[Fred Nerks]

thanks for the pings.

Here's another angle from Leonid Ragozin
bbcrussian.com, Moscow

excerpt -

The country's Muslim community makes up more than 10% of the total population. Demographers predict that by 2020 one out of five Russians will be Muslim. But the question is: How Muslim will they be?

The end of communism found many Muslims dispersed among the non-Muslim population and living a lifestyle nearly indistinguishable from their fellow citizens of Russia. In the 1990s, millions of them turned back to their roots, but many soon grew disappointed with mainstream Islam and called for reforms...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/4341648.stm

[RusIvan]

On his deathbed, the former KGB agent ==

FYI Litvinenko was never KGB agent no spy. Latter job requires the high intellect and education. Litvinenko didn't have both.
He once was the FSB operative for few years the high crimes department. Before that he was the officer of Warden service who guarded the prisoners in former Gulag. So you see.

[Berosus]

1,020 years ago, the Russian leader, Grand Prince Vladimir I, was looking for a modern religion, and eventually chose Orthodox Christianity. He turned down Islam because it would have meant giving up drinking: "Drinking is the joy of the Rus. We cannot exist without that pleasure." Oh, how the country has changed, if Russia is likely to become Moslem now (by demographics, if not by wholesale conversion).

[MadIvan]

In 1552, Tsar Ivan IV, sacked the city of Kazan and forced its inhabitants to convert to Christianity. You can hook a turbine to his corpse now, and generate enough electricity to power Smolensk, I think.

Regards, Ivan

[Capt. Tom]

As I always say, there is no “stability”. We thought we’d “contained” Soviet Communism. Instead, the social pathologies that took hold during the Russian people’s half-century of “containment” will have profound consequences for us and the rest of the world long after the last Commie is dead and buried.

An example of "Today's solution is tomorrow's problem." - tom

[dennisw]

Fatima is a name of a town in Portugal. As you probably figured, it's name after the daughter of the False Prophet.

And Fatima was married to Ali who was assassinated. Same as 3 of the 4 Caliphs after Muhammad were. Ali is who the Shiites revere. Their Ali was cheated out of his chance to rule the Muslim empire of that time. This when the Sunni Shiite split took place

[Tailgunner Joe]

There are ten million people in Moscow. Do you know how many of them are Muslim? Two and a half million. Or about a quarter of the population.

The ratio of muslims is about the same for the country as a whole. Russia is estimated to be home to approximate 25 million muslims. That is why Putin says things like, "Russia has always been Islam's best friend."

[Amsam]

PLEASE..IT HAS NEVER BEEN IMPORTANT THAT FATIMA happens to be a name of a female. MARIAN APPEARANCES AND MIRACLES AND PROPHESY THAT WE SEE COMING TRUE ARE THE TRUE GOLD HERE

[Amsam]

ODD that SHE showed and we do not listen. ODD THAT ..HUMANITY