Why Russia is standing by Syria's Assad

The US and Sov, er, Russians have conflicting goals. We’re rivals. We’re not enemies just now, because we’re not in a shooting war, neither side is trying destroy the other, and neither side planning on starting a shooting a war with the other. I guess I have a fairly high threshold for “enemy.”

well said. On one matter -- the containing of islam, we should make common cause

on another matter -- the containing of China -- Putin is a fool if the doesn't see that it makes more sense for China to grab Siberia than to grab anything else (besides Taiwan which is for ego's sake)

In any case, supporting Assad is (IMHO) in America’s best interests. Its a pity that only the Russians have the balls to openly support him.

I don't support us openly supporting Assad -- it will open us to too much criticism.

it's better to sit by and NOT help the jihadis. Assad can crush them, but not completely as the Sauds are supporting them

the best outcome for America -- as I said is Assad winning, but NOT winning enough, so that he always has to focus on rebels at home and not have any time to focus on the near or far abroad -- just like we should have done with Qaddafi.

It's so annoying that the Arab league are asking for the West to intervene militarily when you KNOW that the moment there is one stray bullet, they will scream "infidels attacking Moslems. We never asked for this"....

I’m pretty sure that Putin knows for certain that he can’t stop the PRC, short of nuking hell out them, if they decide to lurch that way. He’s probably has people working on a deal. I would.

As for Islam, I’m not sure what we can do. As long as it has the rights of privileges of a religion, we can’t contain it. Personally, I’d like to see Moslems regard the same we regarded Soviets during the Cold War, but most folks think I’m kinda unreasonable...

I’m pretty sure that Putin knows for certain that he can’t stop the PRC, short of nuking hell out them

If "PRC" = Peoples Republic of China, you either have no idea what you're talking about or you're deliberately trying to misinform people like cronos and a few others. Russia and China are two birds of a 'new world order' feather. They've been conducting joint war games in preparation for war...against US! (as if you didn't know this already)

From Heritage.org, November 27, 2006:

The death of former Russian spy, Alexander Litvinenko, last week from radioactive Polonium-210 poisoning is the latest in a series of politically motivated attacks on the outspoken opponents of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

http://www.heritage.org/Press/Commentary/ed112706a.cfm
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"Appearing alongside high-profile opponents of President Putin, he [Alexander Litvinenko] has continued to make allegations about his former bosses. Perhaps most notably, he alleged that al-Qaeda number two Ayman al-Zawahiri was trained by the FSB in Dagestan in the years before 9/11".

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/6163502.stm
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Blowing up Russia: The Secret Plot to Bring Back KGB Terror
by Alexander Litvinenko, Yuri Felshtinsky, Geoffrey Andrews and Co (Translator)

Synopsis: Blowing Up Russia contains the allegations of ex-spy Alexander Litvinenko against his former spymasters in Moscow which led to his being murdered in London in November 2006. In the book he and historian Yuri Felshtinsky detail how since 1999 the Russian secret service has been hatching a plot to return to the terror that was the hallmark of the KGB. Vividly written and based on Litvinenko's 20 years of insider knowledge of Russian spy campaigns, Blowing Up Russia describes how the successor of the KGB fabricated terrorist attacks and launched a war. Writing about Litvinenko, the surviving co-author recounts how the banning of the book in Russia led to three earlier deaths.

http://search.barnesandnoble.com/Blowing-up-Russia/Alexander-Litvinenko/e/9781594032011

From AP via FoxNews.com...

Last Living Beslan School Attacker Sentenced to Life in Prison
May 28, 2006

VLADIKAVKAZ, Russia — AP
A southern Russian court on Friday sentenced the sole surviving Beslan school attacker to life in prison, capping a yearlong trial that survivors and victims' relatives say has left the most essential questions about the tragedy unanswered.

They demand to know just who bore the most responsibility: Nur-Pashi Kulayev and his 31 fellow militants, or the officials whose negligence or even alleged complicity allowed them to seize hundreds of children and parents on the first day of school in September 2004.

Countrywatch: Russia

"I did not go to court to become convinced of Kulayev's guilt, but to reconstruct all the circumstances of the terrorist attack and find the truth," said Aneta Gadiyeva, whose daughter was killed. "But I did not learn anything new and did not get any answers." ..."

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,197093,00.html

FROM THE WALL STREET JOURNAL, May 30, 2008
Dear President Medvedev
By TATYANA MOROZOV and ALYONA MOROZOV

"In three coordinated bombings of apartment buildings in Moscow and Volgodonsk in September 1999, 292 people were murdered, including our mother Lyubov Morozova. We are writing this open letter to call on you, Dmitry Anatolyevich, to order an independent, open and full investigation of these attacks."

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121209647875130625.html
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Russian Terror Victims Ask for Truth

In 1999, a series of apartment bombings shook Russia and propelled the country headlong into the Second Chechen War. Nearly nine years after the attacks, which claimed 292 lives, many Russians remain unconvinced by the official version of events, which holds that Chechen separatists were responsible.

Two sisters, who lost their mother in the attack, have written an open letter to President Dmitri Medvedev, urging him to mount a fully open, independent investigation. The sisters, Tatyana and Alyona Morozov, currently reside in Missouri. Their appeal (below) was published in the Wall Street Journal newspaper on May 30th.

–

Dear President Medvedev

In three coordinated bombings of apartment buildings in Moscow and Volgodonsk in September 1999, 292 people were murdered, including our mother Lyubov Morozova. We are writing this open letter to call on you, Dmitry Anatolyevich, to order an independent, open and full investigation of these attacks.

Although these crimes were blamed on Chechen terrorists and used to justify the resumption of a full-scale war against Chechnya later that month, there are numerous indications that Russian security services may have been involved. There is also clear evidence of a cover-up by the authorities. We do not consider this case solved.

Let us remind you of some of the facts:

* On September 23, 1999, police arrested three Federal Security Service (FSB) agents who had planted a detonator and RDX – the same explosive used in the earlier bombings – in the basement of a residential building in the city of Ryazan. The FSB explained the agent’s activities as a “training exercise,” claiming the sacks of explosives actually contained only sugar. The investigation was dropped and all evidence classified “top secret.”

* At about the same time, a Russian soldier discovered RDX in sacks labeled as “sugar” at his army base near Ryazan. The incident was never investigated and the evidence classified.

* On September 13, 1999, the Speaker of the Duma, Gennady Seleznev, announced that an apartment house in Volgodonsk had been blown up – three days before the attack actually occurred.

* Mark Blumenfeld, the property manager of our house on Guryanova Street in Moscow that was blown up, told our lawyer and several journalists that FSB agents had “talked him into” changing his testimony. The agents showed him a photo of Achemez Gochiyayev, a Chechen he had never seen before, and under pressure he “identified” him as the man who had rented storage space in the basement.

* The composite sketch based on Mr. Blumenfeld’s initial description of what the real suspect looked like disappeared from the police file and was replaced with the photograph of Mr. Gochiyaev. Meanwhile, our attorney Mikhail Trepashkin, himself a former KGB agent, told reporters that he had recognized FSB agent Vladimir Romanovich from the police sketch. Romanovich was subsequently killed in Cyprus in a hit and run incident that was never solved.

* In November 2003, on the eve of the trial of two Chechens later convicted for transporting the explosives used in the Moscow bombings, Mr. Trepashkin was arrested after a gun had been planted in his car. This prevented him from submitting Mr. Blumenfeld’s statement to court that the FSB agents had pressured him to give false evidence. The trial of the two Chechens was not convincing to us or the world as it was held behind closed doors and human rights groups noted numerous violations of due process. Mr. Blumenfeld’s statement and the replacement of the police sketch with the photo of Mr. Gochiyayev was never reviewed by a Russian court.

* Four people investigating the FSB’s possible involvement in the bombings were assassinated. Duma Deputy Sergei Yushenkov was shot dead in Moscow in April 2003 and his colleague Yuri Schekochihin died of apparent poisoning three months later. Journalist Anna Politkovskaya was gunned down in October 2006 in her Moscow apartment block and a month later, former KGB agent Alexander Litvinenko died of poisoning in London.

Many Russians have come to the conclusion that the bombings may have been the work of Russian security services. As for our family, our initial trust in the official version of a “Chechen trail” is long gone. We have come to believe that our mother and neighbors were sacrificed for a political end: To justify the war in Chechnya and help Vladimir Putin become president the following year. Only an objective investigation could make us change this view.

Mr. President, we are writing this open letter because we would like to believe that your ascent to the presidency will end this dark period in Russian history. You were not involved.

We realize that you owe the previous regime a debt of loyalty and gratitude. But the powers of the state were entrusted to you not to protect possible murderers. You are now in control of Russia and your position imposes a higher responsibility. Before history, the people and the memory of innocent victims, you have an obligation to find and tell the truth about these crimes.

Related articles:

* A Record Harvest of Spies

* An Open Letter to the Federal Security Service (FSB) of Russia

* Opposition Activist Revealed as FSB Agent

* Beslan Rights Group Charged With Extremism

* Russian Immigration Agency Knew Nothing About Morar’s Deportation

* Investigative Journalist Barred From Returning to Moscow

* Kasparov on His FSB Interrogation

Source: Russian Terror Victims Ask for Truth:
http://www.theotherrussia.org/2008/05/31/russian-terror-victims-ask-for-truth/
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The Federal Security Service (FSB - Federal'naya Sluzhba Bezopasnosti, previously known as Federal Counterintelligence Service - FSK) is the most powerful of the successors to the KGB.
http://www.globalsecurity.org/intell/world/russia/fsb.htm

Russia and Islam are not Separate:
Why Russia backs Al-Qaeda

By Konstantin Preobrazhensky

Americans generally believe that Russia is afraid of Islamic terrorism as much as the U.S.A. They are reminded of the war in Chechnya, the hostage crisis at the Beslan School in 2004 and at the Moscow Theater in 2002, and of the apartment house blasts in Moscow in 1999, where over 200 people were killed. It is clear that Russians are also targets of terrorism today.

But in all these events, the participation of the FSB, Federal Security Service, inheritor to the KGB, is also clear. Their involvement in the Moscow blasts has been proven by lawyer Mikhail Trepashkin, a former FSB Colonel. For this he was illegally imprisoned, and is now suffering torture and deprivation of medical assistance, from which he is not likely to survive.

A key distinction between Russian and American attitudes towards Islamic terrorism is that while for America terrorism is largely seen as an exterior menace, Russia uses terrorism as an object as a tool of the state for manipulation in and outside the home country. Islamic terrorism is only part of the world of terrorism. Long before Islamic terrorism became a global threat, the KGB had used terrorism to facilitate the victory of world Communism.

This leads to the logical connection between Russian and Islamic terrorism. The late Alexander Litvinenko, poisoned in London in November, 2006, told me that his former FSB colleagues had trained famous Al-Qaeda terrorists Ayman Al-Zawahiri and Juma Namangoniy during the 1980s and 1990s. Ayman Al-Zawahiri, one of the world's most wanted terrorists, has been responsible for the murder of U.S. nationals outside the United States. Before his death, Juma Namangoniy (Jumabai Hojiyev), a native of Soviet Uzbekistan, was a right-hand man of Osama bin Laden in charge of the Taliban's northern front in Afghanistan.

In 1996, Alexander Litvinenko was responsible for securing the secrecy of Al-Zawahiri's arrival in Russia, who was trained by FSB instructors in Dagestan, Northern Caucasus, in 1996-1997.

At that time, Litvinenko was the Head of the Subdivision for Internationally Wanted Terrorists of the First Department of the Operative-Inquiry Directorate of the FSB Anti-Terrorist Department. He was ordered to undertake the delicate mission of securing Al-Zawahiri from unintentional disclosure by the Russian police. Though Al-Zawahiri had been brought to Russia by the FSB using a false passport, it was still possible for the police to learn about his arrival and report to Moscow for verification. Such a process could disclose Al-Zawahiri as an FSB collaborator.

In order to prevent this, Litvinenko visited a group of the highly placed police officers to notify them in advance. "If you get information about some suspicious Arabs arriving in the Caucasus, please report it to me before informing your leadership", he told them.

Juma Namangoniy was once a student of the Saboteur Training Center of the First Chief Directorate of the KGB in 1989-91. The school was notorious for the international terrorists who matriculated from it. It now belongs to the FSB, and since only KGB staff officers were allowed to study there, Juma Namangoniy's presence clearly suggests that he was much more than a civil collaborator.

Mohammed Atta, the pilot of the first plane to crash into the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001, had met with a senior Iraqi intelligence agent in Prague, Czech Republic, five months before the attack. But Iraqi intelligence was just a client of Russia's intelligence service. It brings a new understanding to the fact that President Putin was the first foreign President to call President Bush on 9/11. One may conjecture that he knew in advance what was to happen.

Muslim Name and Communist Heart

Tartars have always been patriotic to Russia. Their independent kingdom was conquered by Russia in the 16th century, but their gentry were allowed to join the Russian upper class and enjoy all its privileges. Even today, many Russian families of noble origin have Tartar origins. Russia has a half-millennium of experience in turning conquered Muslim nations into obedient citizens by bribing their elite.

There are many Soviet Muslims, therefore, who seem to face no conflict of spirit. One can be a Muslim in name only, whose heart belongs to Communism. There have been a lot of such people among Russian Muslims, especially among the Tartars. The Soviet Union has typically preferred to appoint them as ambassadors to Muslim countries. Their Muslim names give them a pass to the local society, but their Communist hearts order them to serve world Communism and not the world of Islam.

In the Soviet period, the highest leadership of the Muslim republics like Uzbekistan were unofficially allowed to practice Islam under the guise of folk rites, even though their Russian colleagues were severely reprimanded for participating in such Christian "rites" as Christmas or Easter. Unlike today, Soviet cartoonists were able to mock Islam as they mocked all other religions and it didn't bring any special reaction.

Muslims of the Uzbek and other Central Asian republics' elite joined the KGB intelligence in order to spy on fellow Muslim countries. In the KGB, I have met a lot of such quasi-Muslim officers.

Russia Grows Muslim

Putin continues the traditional Russian policy of giving privileges to the Muslim elite. Today's Russian Minister of Healthcare, Mikhail Zurabov, is a Chechen. His political agenda includes the total destruction of the Russian healthcare system, looking like revenge for the war in Chechnya. Putin shows no concern over that.

Strategically Russia is surrendering to the Muslim world. The Russian population is declining rapidly, being undermined by 70 years of Communist experiment and the cold indifference of post-communist rulers. Annually, Russia is losing 900 thousand people who are being replaced by Muslims from the Caucasus and Central Asia. Islam is now the second-largest religion in Russia, where it may total up to 28 million adherents. Because of this, Russia was able to join the Organization of the Islamic Conference in 2003.

Russia's great qualitative population change represents both a departure from the past and a strengthening link with it. The synergies between the history of Russia's national policies of terrorism and the radical Islamic terrorism that it is spreading around the world are natural partners that may severely impact on America's own future.

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Konstantin Preobrazhensky, a former Lt. Colonel in the KGB who defected to the United States in 1993, is an intelligence expert and specialist on Japan, about which he has written six books. His newest book Russian-American, A New KGB Asset will be published in late 2007. This article was first published by Gerard Group International, Intel Analyses, 31 August 2007.

http://cicentre.com/Documents/russia_islam_not_separate.html

IF you can’t stop somebody, it might be a good strategery to pretend friendship and redirect their aggression.

Can’t the Arab League do anything by itself?

why should it, when it has its suckers in the West who will fight for it (remember Gulf War I) and then it can blame those westerners for the evils? Remember the 9/11 was supposedly because the US had troops on the “holy soil” of Saudia

Sorry, but Stalin post World War II was a Russian nationalist. There is even a movement in Russia to canonize him as a saint in the Orthodox Church.

The irony is that Hitler was Austrian, and Stalin was Georgian.

The lesson here is, don’t have foreign-born leaders.

Stalin wasn't a Russian nationalist. Firstly, he was ethnically Georgian

secondly, he used nationalism after Lenin and his plan to march on western europe was stopped by the poles in the battle of warsaw 1920. He then cynically used the idea of "socialism in one country"

finally, it was the communist party who petitioned the Orthodox Church to canonise Stalin in 2008. That failed...